ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery form joint streaming venture

Three of the biggest rightsholders in sports are coming together to court fans who have cut the cord or never had one in the first place.

On Tuesday, ESPN (owned by the Walt Disney Company), Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox announced that the American media giants are launching a joint streaming service that will feature live games from many of the sports leagues and organizations they have contracts with. According to CNBC's Alex Sherman, ESPN said that the new venture is separate from its plans to launch its own direct-to-consumer service within the next two years, plans that are still in development.

The venture is being viewed as a way for the three companies to share the burden of astronomical sports rights as each company doles out billions to pro and amateur competitions across the globe. With cable and satellite subscriptions continuing to plummet while operators such as Comcast and Charter evaluate the costs of carrying lesser-watched linear channels, this appears to be a way to capture those who have given up on traditional TV and those who grew up without it.

Even though all three companies aren't new to the live streaming of sports, only Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have either built or augmented already existing standalone streaming services for sports. ESPN+ launched in the spring of 2018 as a compliment to the linear family of channels and its written platforms (ESPN Insider and ESPN the Magazine), offering exclusive streams of events that typically would not air on traditional channels. In addition to providing digital streams of the linear channels — through a cable or satellite subscription — ESPN+ is largely known for college sports as well as the home of UFC and Top Rank's pay-per-view cards.

Before the 2022 merger between Time Warner and Discovery, Time Warner's Turner Sports launched B/R Live, which was branded after Bleacher Report and streamed select international soccer matches, golf and pro wrestling from AEW. After the controversial merger, WBD rebranded HBO Max as Max, added Discovery programming and just recently brought live sports into the fold before the MLB playoffs in October 2023.

Fox bucked against the trend of developing a network-based streaming service for its sports and entertainment properties for years, though it did launch Fox Nation for its fervent Fox News audience in late 2018. However, it leaned heavily on the free ad-supported service Tubi for its men's and women's World Cup coverage in 2022 and 2023.

In many ways, this unnamed service is basically "Sports Hulu." The comparison to Hulu should make sense on the surface — that streamer was a joint venture of Disney, Fox, Time Warner and Comcast (parent of NBC), but eventually was overtaken by Disney late in 2023 after it brought out the other companies. Each provided shows from their own networks and studios in hopes of capturing a central streaming audience until said companies invested — and lost — billions into their own entertainment streamers.