Disney, Fox, Warner Bros Discovery Push Back on Sports Streaming Plan Concerns

Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros Discovery have sent a letter to Congress disagreeing with their opponents, who sent a letter to Congress earlier this week urging them to look into the matter. These companies included Fubo, DIRECTV, and DISH Network, who do have a horse in this race. They believe that by cutting out the distributor and distributing the content themselves, they can raise prices for their live TV services, pushing them out.

The three companies, which include Disney, Fox and Warner Bros Discovery, are still saying that this streaming service would target those that are already living outside of the traditional cable bundle and does not seek to drive any of its competitors out of business.

The statement says that “the service is a pro-consumer offering to a segment of viewers who currently aren’t served. It will expand consumer choice by creating an incremental, nonexclusive option for this segment of viewers to watch their favorite sports.”

The joint venture has routinely said since the announcement was made earlier this year that the goal with this is not to have an industry-changing disruption. Instead, it wants to serve sports to an audience segment that has never had access to cable channels like ESPN, TNT, and FS1. Basically, Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros Discovery think this joint venture is going to expand the number of viewers for each of these channels versus getting people to ditch streaming Live TV services like Fubo, YouTube TV, and others.

While Disney doesn’t think it’ll affect Fubo, it will

These days, a lot of people who subscribe to things like Fubo, YouTube TV, and Hulu with Live TV really are only subscribing for live events like sports. If those subscribers can now get those sports channels in a smaller and cheaper bundle, they will definitely ditch Fubo. Which has now become insanely expensive, starting at around $80 per month these days.

So Fubo is right to worry, but Disney does have a point. While they aren’t looking to go after those who are Fubo customers right now, that doesn’t mean those customers won’t come over to this new streamer. Let’s also not forget that Disney is planning on launching a standalone ESPN streaming service next year as well. Which will have even more sports content available.