ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros are launching a new sports streaming service. It could change TV forever.
- ESPN, Warner Bros., and Fox will launch a new streaming service for sports.
- It's set to launch this fall, but we still don't know how much it will cost.
Take all the sports that run on ESPN and ABC. Add all the sports that run on Fox. And all of the sports that run on TNT and TBS.
Now combine them on one streaming service.
That's what's coming this fall, via a new joint venture, co-owned by Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox Corp.
We still don't know some crucial details — including how much this thing is going to cost consumers when it launches.
But it's a very big deal: For many people, sports — and specifically, NFL football — are the main reason to watch and pay for conventional TV. Now a huge swath of that will be available as a stand-alone streaming product. If it takes off, it will reorder the TV landscape.
Worth noting: Paramount's CBS and Comcast's NBC are not members of this joint venture, and both of those companies have significant NFL contracts as well as other major sports; CBS, for instance, shares the rights to college basketball's March Madness tournament.
So this service — name TBD, as well as the management team that will run it — won't be a full replacement for sports fans.
But it's going to be a significant change from the past, when TV networks kept their most valuable sports programming on their linear networks, even as they tried to build up their streaming options.
People who are already watching sports on Disney-owned ESPN and the other channels that are joining the joint venture won't lose access to those games, which will stay on the linear channels.
And a person familiar with Disney's plans says the company still intends to go forward with its plan to sell a stand-alone streaming version of ESPN.
It's worth noting that all three TV giants have tried a version of a streaming joint venture before. Fox was a founding member of Hulu when that service launched in 2007, and Disney later joined the consortium as an equal partner.
The company that was formerly known as Time Warner, which is now part of Warner Bros. Discovery, also joined Hulu at one point.
And one thing we learned from that joint venture was that big TV networks often have competing interests that can make maintaining that kind of structure a touch-and-go affair.
But the big picture is this: Sports is the last major thing keeping traditional TV alive.
Now the three of the biggest players in TV are going try a very tricky balancing act — putting some of their most valuable, most expensive programming on a separate service while hoping that enough audience sticks with their existing channels to keep them going at the same time.
It's a fascinating, high-stakes bet.
The companies announced the new service with this press release: