LAS VEGAS – One day, brilliant television executives will come together and put their programming under one roof. It will solve all your sports viewing problems. They will call it cable.
This new ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery company is not. At least not yet.
It’s still important that three of the biggest brands in sports come together this fall to give fans another option. The Great Reunion is upon us, but it is far from resolved.
For the consumer, no need This company will be named later and my initial bet is that most of you will go with that option. The service will be owned equally by all three parties, but each partner will receive the same rate they earn from cable or YouTubeTV, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. ESPN alone, the singular network, receives about $12 a month from cable subscribers.
So what does that mean for you? The estimated price for the new company when ESPN, Fox and WBD Sports are added will likely be between $40 and $50 per month. There are probably some sports fans who would like to save a little money with this deal, but it’s hard to believe there are many of them.
You can already watch almost everything this trio has to offer through places like YouTube TV for around $70 and change per month. If you want this option, it’s available now, with even more channels to boot.
After a year of talks between the three parties, it is weighty to see how these superpowers come together, and it is very understandable why they did so. For them it is not a risk, but a reward. This “slim sports package,” as the cool kids in the media like to call it, is worth a try.
Fox Sports enters the sports subscription space for the first time with this small step. They have been the ones who have watched their competitors invest billions in subscription streaming while they stood on the sidelines patiently waiting for their moment. Their executives have thought that regrouping is the way to go, so this gives them a head start.
ESPN has been planning to go direct to consumer with all of its product by 2025 with the possibility of 2024. Now, it will begin this fall with team partners.
This new agreement does not deter ESPN’s previous plans. The network still intends to have a standalone direct-to-consumer ESPN product by next year. Additionally, it could still move forward with an equity partnership with the NFL or other digital leagues and/or players.
WBD Sports has an ever-underrated menu of rights to add to the new product, from the NBA and MLB playoffs to March Madness.
The new sports streaming company is a step toward rebundling sports rights, but incomplete. Sunday’s Super Bowl on CBS, for example, would not be on the platform. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
But the reason these entities don’t have anything complete here yet is the exclusion of other major players, like CBS, for example.
This “thin sports package” is too thin to include Patrick Mahomes, Christian McCaffrey and Taylor Swift this weekend, since CBS has the Super Bowl this year. More problematic when you compare this new product to YouTube: If you want to watch March Madness, the CBS games won’t be on it. It will not be a one-stop shop.
The importance of this deal could increase in the future, as the names in the press release suggest. The appointments were from the most important: Bob Iger of Disney, Lachlan Murdoch of Fox and David Zaslav of WBD.
However, if they want to fight the almost unlimited pockets of Amazon, Apple or Netflix, if those digital giants get even more serious about sports rights, Iger, Murdoch and Zaslav could have a stronger hand as a trio.
The new entity will have its own CEO and is said to operate independently. Its bosses, however, will remain Iger, Murdoch and Zaslav, so to what extent will it be independent? Where could it lead us in the future? Will they be able to get along? If the questions can be answered positively, it could lead to something even greater.
For you, the fan, maybe this new CEO will find a way to put everything you want to see into one simple service. Until then, this company won’t change much for most of you.
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(Photo of Fox Sports’ Michael Strahan interviewing Christian McCaffrey of the San Francisco 49ers after last month’s NFC Championship Game: Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)
