The new sports streaming service Venu reportedly plans to launch within the month.
Daniel Kaplan of Front Office Sports reported Saturday that Venu — the joint streaming venture of Disney, Fox Corporation and Warner Bros. Discovery — is set to launch at some point this month. No date has been officially announced, but the target for launch has always been the “fall.” (While the “fall” does not begin until late September, one could infer that in sports, fall begins as soon as the first snap of the football season.) (Update 8/12: Per Kaplan, Fubo said in court Monday that the launch date is August 23.)
Launch plans could be disrupted by the outcome of Fubo’s ongoing lawsuit seeking to block the venture. Closing arguments in that case are set for Monday, per Kaplan.
In addition to the Fubo lawsuit, Venu is facing congressional scrutiny from a trio of U.S. senators — including former presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — who are asking the Department of Justice to scrutinize the venture.
Both Fubo and the senators are raising antitrust issues, specifically arguing that Venu has an advantage over the existing streaming MVPDs because it does not have to bundle the sports networks with other lower-rated channels.
Assuming that Venu launches as planned, it will include all of the sports channels operated by Disney, Fox and WBD. Over the next year, that will include the highest-profile college football games, some NFL action, and all nationally televised NBA, Major League Baseball and NHL games. The service has been priced at $43/mo, lower than any of the streaming MVPDs, though its lack of NBC and CBS Sports programming could make that less of a deal than it sounds.
