It finally has a name. The upcoming “Super Sports Streaming Service,” as we’d taken to calling it, that combines the rights of Disney (which means ESPN), Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery shall be known as Venu Sports. (Try pronouncing it like “venue” and it’ll make sense.)
There’s still no word of when, precisely, it will launch, or what it will cost.
“We are excited to officially introduce Venu Sports, a brand that we feel captures the spirit of an all-new streaming home where sports fans outside of the traditional pay TV ecosystem can experience an incredible collection of live sports, all in one place,” Venu Sports CEO (and former Apple exec) Pete Distad said in a press release. “As preparations for the platform continue to accelerate, we are singularly focused on delivering a best-in-class product for our target audience, built from the ground up using the latest technologies to engage and entertain discerning sports fans wanting one-stop access to live games.”
The website for Venu Sports dubs it “the future home of sports streaming. Venu will bring the most sought-after live sports from the top leagues and teams, together in one place. All in a new app built from the ground up for sports fans.”
If you’ve missed all this over the past few months, the gist is that Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery are pooling their resources — that is, the broadcast/streaming rights to all the sporting events they currently control — and putting them in a single streaming service. It’s not necessarily meant to suck folks away from existing cable or streaming subscriptions, nor does anyone expect customers to carry both, because that would be duplicative. Instead, Venu Sports is aimed for some 60 million “cord-nevers” — those who don’t currently subscribe to anything at all.
Meanwhile, Fubo — the smallest of the live streaming services in the U.S. — has filed a federal lawsuit against Venu Sports, alleging that the players involved have resorted to unfair business practices to keep Fubo (and others) down while continuing to build up their own business interests. It’s doubtful that the lawsuit will lead to a delay in the launch of Venu Sports, however.