Warner, Fox, Disney To Launch Streaming Sports Joint Venture (variety.com) 31
Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney are planning to launch a new streaming joint venture that will combine all their sports programming "under a single broadband roof," reports Variety. The move "will put content from ESPN, TNT and Fox Sports on a new standalone app and, in the process, likely shake up the world of TV sports." From the report: The three media giants are slated to launch the new service in the fall. Subscribers would get access to linear sports networks including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, ABC, Fox, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV and ESPN+, as well as hundreds of hours from the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL and many top college divisions. Pricing will be announced at a later date.
Each company would own one third of the new outlet and license their sports content to it on a non-exclusive basis. The service would have a new brand and an independent management team. The concept surfaces as traditional media companies are grappling with the migration of sports -- the last TV format that generates steady crowds and sustained ratings -- to streaming venues.
The concentration of top sports under one roof would be significant. Between them, ESPN and Warner have most rights to the NHL and the NBA, while Fox, Warner and ESPN control at present the majority of rights to Major League Baseball. Only the NFL would enjoy a large presence with entities that are not a part of the joint venture, with "Sunday Night Football" at NBCUniversal, "Thursday Night Football" at Amazon and a Sunday afternoon game at CBS.
Each company would own one third of the new outlet and license their sports content to it on a non-exclusive basis. The service would have a new brand and an independent management team. The concept surfaces as traditional media companies are grappling with the migration of sports -- the last TV format that generates steady crowds and sustained ratings -- to streaming venues.
The concentration of top sports under one roof would be significant. Between them, ESPN and Warner have most rights to the NHL and the NBA, while Fox, Warner and ESPN control at present the majority of rights to Major League Baseball. Only the NFL would enjoy a large presence with entities that are not a part of the joint venture, with "Sunday Night Football" at NBCUniversal, "Thursday Night Football" at Amazon and a Sunday afternoon game at CBS.
*Sigh* - the cable TV model is back... (Score:1)
Say it with me (Score:2)
MONOPOLY!
How can this pass even the barest scrutiny?
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Sports team choose the outlets that broadcast their games etc. in one of several ways. Some form or join leagues that negotiate and manage the rights for them. Others negotiate directly. Some team owners also own media outlets. Some deals are for multiple years, some not very long at all. Some deals restrict over the air broadcasting, others leave OTA rights out.
Monopoly? Sure, it looks like a monopoly, but the idea of multiple outlets showing the same games at the same time is fairly unusual, though when i
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Once that is over, I'm pretty much good on sports for the year.
I can only think of 2 exceptions...March Madness for college basketball, and that's on the regular networks.
And when the college World Series in baseball fires up, if any of the teams I care for are in, I"ll watch some of that.
But that's about it.
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Oh yeah, March Madness, which is all the college basketball to watch. And which is often available OTA.
You should watch the college softball WS, them players can play!
now end the forced ESPN into basic cable plans! (Score:3)
now end the forced ESPN into basic cable plans!
Also NFL force peacock to put the peacock only NFL games on directv commercial service like how the amazon games are.
directv commercial has the ESPN+ only NHL games and just about all steaming only games from the NBA, MLB, NHL games.
Do they know how sports work? (Score:3)
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Not enough details but I would hope (and this probably wont be the case) that this is priced in a lot of tiers, to where you can buy say the viewing season for an individual team, maybe even now without weird blackout dates, or a couple teams, or like a "city package", or a league if you only care about one sport, maybe I just want to be able to watch the playoff season of something, all the way up to "I want to watch all the teams from all of the sports" because there are people who would in fact pay for s
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Sometimes the answer to "who wants to see all those games?" is "gamblers", and it's only getting more widespread.
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Seriously? Do these executypes even understand a typical sports fan? (I know, dumb question) Is there really a market for "I want to watch all the teams from all of the sports" type of programming? Most normal people watch one or two sports, and follow one or two teams. As a Twins fan, I'm not going to turn on a Padres game unless the Twins are playing there. Why would I want to pay some guaranteed-to-be-obscene amount of money for a shitload of cruft that I'll never turn on? How hard of a concept is "The only thing I want is to be able to watch every one of my team's games"?
You're worried (probably rightly) about billing... which is a different topic.
This is a good thing. This is the way it should be: one clearing house for all the stuff. One place where you go to get whatever you want. Like a supermarket, for streaming.
We shouldn't have to give our payment details to ten different organizations, making the odds of our data being compromised ten times as likely.
Now, once this is all amalgamated, it should totally be pay-for-what-you-watch. They can track it. They sh
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I do know a few people who would watch anything sports, when they want to kill time switch on a sports channel, just as others do with music or shows.
The cord-cutting dream is alive! (Score:3)
I guess cord cutting meant going from $200 / month to the cable company to $50 month to an ISP, and $50 / month to 3+ media conglomerates.
Guaranteed, this offering is $50+ a month and will have ads.
From One Subscription To Another (Score:2)
Their solution to people cancelling their cable subscription..... is to sell them a different subscription. Yeah, that'll work.
The only sport I care about (Score:2)
Is Formula 1
Unfortunately ESPN have the rights to that in the USA
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Fall back on old model (Score:3)
Says the guy who pays $240 a year to have F1 and MotoGP subscriptions.
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Fucking Sunday ticket has always been so overpriced that I do not understand how or why people buy it.
Ugh, no kidding. Now, with the way things are going in the NFL, even if you have Sunday Ticket you're going to miss at least 3 games because they are on a Monday, Thursday, or Saturday. (Unless you happen to subscribe to those services too.) I have a broadcast antenna, that gets me most of the way their. It's the high seas for the rest of it. Until these teams and leagues start becoming less hostile to their fans, fuck 'em.
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and they will make you have it as part of the base (Score:2)
Monopoly again? (Score:3)
So, the Hulu of sports... (Score:2)
... And I predict a similar fate for this service as what happened to Hulu.
No one watches television anymore .. (Score:2)
Oligopoly, not monopoly (Score:1)
a market situation in which each of a few producers affects but does not control the market
As a cord cutter. lolololol fork them (Score:2)