• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 18, 2024

The prospect of sports-specific streaming service Venu Sports getting to launch, backed by three major media companies, is looking increasingly dim.

A federal judge has denied a bid by media companies -- Walt Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery -- to dismiss a lawsuit, filed by sports-focused virtual pay TV platform FuboTV, that intends to keep Venu Sports from operating.

A major element in all this is what critics of Venu see as the major issues -- driving up wholesale network prices for TV video distributors like Fubo and also forcing those platforms to carry their less-than-popular non-sports entertainment channels. These all result in passing on higher prices to consumers.

The trial date is now set for next year, in October -- not good timing in this fast-paced streaming TV world.

Venu Sports had been slated to air a streaming sports bundle featuring 15 major live sports-focused TV networks -- including ESPN, Fox, Fox Sports ABC, TNT, TBS and ESPN+.

Sports include content from the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, and NHL, plus college sports (football and basketball) and tennis.

Those three companies are estimated to control over half of all U.S. sports TV rights -- which has raised concerns about anti-competitive business practices.

This has been a slow-moving train coming for some time.

Major media companies making deals by leveraging up to around a dozen cable and broadcast channels to distributors has been a common practice for decades.

Now cable, satellite, telco, and virtual pay TV consumer retailers have gained some leverage back with the major threat substantially pulling back on onerous network packaging demands.

In return, those pay TV providers are now demanding those companies allow them to sell the most popular consumer streaming platforms.

This started with Charter Communications, whose deal with Disney allowed it to package Disney+ and Hulu. Since then, Charter also struck deals with WBD’s Max and Paramount Global’s Paramount+. Other legacy pay TV businesses have done similar agreements.

Where is the leverage likely to be going? The prospective Fubo/Venu Sports court case that will begin next year should give us a clearer picture about who will need to play ball.