Disney, partners pull the plug on Venu Sports streaming service
Venu, the sports-focused streaming venture proposed by the Walt Disney Co., Fox Sports and Warner Bros. Discovery, will not see the light of day.
The partners said Friday they have decided not to move forward with the service, days after a lawsuit blocking it was settled.
“After careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture and not launch the streaming service,” the companies said in a joint statement. “In an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels.”
Fubo will be combined with Hulu’s live TV service and offer a new streaming package with ABC and ESPN channels.
Venu was announced in 2024 as a slimmed-down streaming package that would have offered such channels as ESPN, TNT, ABC and Fox Sports, which carry an array of major live sports events. Priced at $42.99, the product was aimed at young fans unwilling to pay for a traditional cable TV package.
Fubo, a New York-based company offering a similar service, went to court to block Venu, saying it was anti-competitive. A federal judge agreed and temporarily stopped the service, ruling in August that Venu would “substantially lessen competition and restrain trade.”
The newly christened platform from Fox Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery is scheduled to launch in the fall. Pricing has yet to be disclosed.
The legal challenge was dropped Monday after the Walt Disney Co. agreed to merge Fubo with its Hulu Live TV service. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox also announced that Fubo would receive $220 million, with an additional $145-million term loan from Disney.
Disney said Fubo will offer a new package with its ABC and ESPN channels, which now appears to be a replacement for Venu. ESPN will also offer a direct-to-consumer service later this year, giving consumers access to its channels without a pay TV subscription.
Wall Street analysts were lukewarm on Venu, noting that the hardcore fan who watches sports is willing to pay for a traditional TV subscription that provides a full slate of channels and events. Venu subscribers would’ve still had to find ways to get sports programming on the outlets owned by Comcast and Paramount Global, both of which have NFL packages.
“We saw Venu as a very niche offering, given that it was a sports-focused service that was not going to be cheap (was planned for $43/month), and yet would not be a complete sports offering,” Raymond James analysts Ric Prentiss and Brent Penter wrote Friday in a note to clients.
Venu looked like even less of a bargain when Warner Bros. Discovery lost its package of NBA games to Amazon’s Prime Video and Comcast.
Venu was not out of the legal woods. Satellite TV companies DirecTV and EchoStar, which owns Dish Network, also contend that the joint venture would be anticompetitive.
The companies asked a U.S, district court judge Thursday to uphold the original opinion that temporarily blocked the Venu launch.
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