Venu Sports blocked, but can sports fragmentation still be unlocked?

Mid-September, an October 2025 trial date was set for the lawsuit between Venu Sports – the joint venture between The Walt Disney Company, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery – and Fubo, after the latter had been granted a preliminary injunction in August, and the platform’s launch blocked. The three media conglomerates initially announced that their combined sports-centric platform would cost $42.99 monthly at launch in the fall, in time for the start of the new NFL season. As a reminder, the platform was supposed to include 14 linear TV channels - including prominent sports channels (like ESPN, TNT, or FS1), local ABC / Fox broadcast stations, a catalog of on-demand sports content, and access to ESPN+. With this offer, the platform targets the “cord cutter and cord never fans currently not served by existing pay TV packages.” If the alliance between three major media conglomerates is to be praised, as a collective attempt to respond to big tech competition – not only in sports but in entertainment in general – and cord-cutting, several substantial doubts can be raised as to the legitimate appeal of Venu Sports. Venu Sports’ incomplete portfolio of rights First, the sports portfolio of the newly created platform lacks some major rights. With CBS and NBC out of the picture, a significant portion of NFL games will be missing each season. The same goes for college sports, golf, or soccer (most notably the UEFA Champions League and the Premier League). Streamers (Amazon, Apple TV+, YouTube, Roku, and now Netflix) also have their share of rights to NFL, MLB or MLS. In this regard, the allocation of NBA rights for the 2025-2036 cycle turned out to be a major blow for Venu Sports, as WBD was not awarded any package, replaced by NBC and Amazon. Local games -through Regional Sports Networks - will not be covered either. Therefore, the $42.99 price could still appear as prohibitive to cord-cutter or cord-never super generalist sports fans, given that existing vMVPD alternatives such as Sling TV or Youtube TV – though around $20-30 more expensive – include the content missing on Venu (except for RSNs) and also additional features (unlimited DVR) or content (through non-sports linear channels). For single-sports fans, the problem for Venu will revolve around seasonality, and the capacity to encourage those fans to remain subscribed when the season of their favorite sports ends, to mitigate the churn. Beyond the consumer perspective, the collaboration between the three groups will be scrutinized, when it comes to sharing revenues (given that from 2025, WBD will not hold any NFL or NBA rights), tech, or data. WBD and Disney will keep operating their own streaming platforms (respectively Max and Disney+ & Hulu,...