Massive new sports streaming service launching in 2024

A new live sports streaming service from Walt Disney Co., Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. — putting all of their best games online — will test the consumer’s loyalty to cable-TV bundles and pressure companies like Comcast Corp.

The companies said Tuesday they’re joining forces to launch the new service in the fall, just in time for the start of the NFL and college football.

The name, monthly subscription price and management team will be unveiled later.

The joint venture will combine the most-popular live sports from three media giants, including ESPN’s Monday Night Football, Fox’s Sunday NFL games and the March Madness college basketball tournament carried on Warner Bros. channels.

That’s a big threat to cable TV plans from Comcast and Charter Communications Inc.

“Combining as many sports rights into one platform as possible could help persuade sports fans to embrace such a service,” Brian Wieser, media analyst with Madison & Wall LLC, said in a research note.

“This would also accelerate the pace of decline of traditional pay TV because there would be very little that would be unique to those traditional services.”

Cable TV operators weren’t briefed on the companies’ plans, according to people involved in the launch. Representatives of Comcast and Charter, the two largest providers, declined to comment.

The three media companies say the new service is aimed at consumers “outside of the traditional TV bundle,” though it’s hard to see how it doesn’t also encourage more cord cutting by pay-TV subscribers.

The new service will be priced below some cable-TV alternatives, like YouTube TV, that start at around $73 a month, and above standalone streaming offerings, said one executive, who asked not to be identified discussing details that aren’t public.

Disney’s ESPN+ service, which carries much but not all of the company’s sports programming, costs $11 a month.

“The skinny sports bundle we’ve been waiting for,” analysts at MoffettNathanson LLC called it.

Disney still plans to launch a streaming version of its flagship ESPN channel in about a year.

It will have interactive features, including sports betting and the ability to chat with fellow fans, and will be priced below the new sports offering.

Absent from the venture is Comcast’s NBC and Paramount Global’s CBS — two legacy media companies that also have long-running and deep commitments to live sports.

Those companies weren’t included because the partners wanted to keep the costs of the service down, the executives said.

“This has been discussed for a long time, putting sports assets together so consumers can find the games they’re looking for,” Bank of America Securities analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich told Bloomberg TV.

“Is it something that will pull apart the bundle, which will bad for all three of these companies? There’s not a lot of details, but the concept of putting all these together is very positive.”

The service will carry roughly half of all NFL games, along with most of the NBA, NHL and college football.

The three partners expect to receive revenue similar to what they collect now from cable and satellite TV distributors on a per-subscriber basis, the executives said.

The sports rights included already cost the companies about $16 billion, according to analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein.

Combining resources makes “a ton of sense,” said Bernard Gershon, a media industry consultant.

It spreads the cost of the sports rights, as well as the expenses of building out a new streaming business, and gives the companies more muscle to compete for programming rights against Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube.

Fox doesn’t have a subscription-based streaming service for its sports content, and Warner Bros.’ Max is smaller than rivals Disney+ and Netflix.

Industry executives are calling the service the “Hulu of sports,” a reference to the early days of that pioneering streaming service.

Hulu was once jointly owned by NBC, a predecessor to Fox and later Disney.

The joint venture is a response to changes in consumer viewing habits that are roiling the media industry.

The rapid decline in cable TV subscribers and rise of streaming is challenging traditional networks — like Fox, Disney’s ABC and ESPN, and Warner Bros.’ TNT — to find new ways of doing business.