In February, Disney, Warner Bros., and Fox announced plans to offer a sports streaming bundle, featuring games from the leagues covered by all three companies. It would include championship games from the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, and many other leagues.
While the announcement intrigued many, expectations for its success were tempered while pricing was still being determined. This week the Venu Sports joint venture announced that subscriptions would be priced at $42.99 per month.
Attractive pricing has been seen as critical to the success of the new venture. The service would be compared with traditional cable bundles which are frequently more than $100 per month and YouTube TV which costs $73 per month.
Venu’s appeal would come from being significantly cheaper than cable or YouTube TV while still playing events from all major U.S. sporting leagues, which surveys have indicated are the most reliable draw for audiences.
However, the Venu package has become significantly less interesting after Warner Bros. Discovery was unable to renew its broadcast rights to the NBA. As a result, Venu Sports will only show NBA games available from Disney’s ESPN, requiring basketball fans to also subscribe to Amazon Prime and/or Peacock to watch the remaining nationally-televised NBA games.
Even before its current rights expire, Warner Bros. Discovery only has rights to broadcast 55% of the NBA’s games, forcing super fans to also subscribe to other services to get access to all the games.
Venu Sports is only the latest in a series of partnerships between rival streamers to offer bundles that increase content options for consumers without the provider having to make large investments in content acquisition or development.
