After spending years as the final holdout among major media companies, Fox is finally planning to make its sports programming available via a direct-to-subscriber streaming service.
Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch said in an earnings call Tuesday that the company plans to launch a subscription streaming service by year’s end that will include sports and news content, marking the first time that Fox sports programming will be available direct to subscriber.
Fox was one of the three companies behind the planned sports-specific streaming service Venu, which would have included Fox Sports programming, but that was shelved earlier this year.
As of now, Fox is the only one of the “Big Four” networks whose sporting events are not available via a streaming service. The majority of games on ABC, CBS and NBC can be seen with a subscription to ESPN+, Paramount+ and Peacock, respectively. Fox has aired select sporting events, including a handful of exclusive events, on its free streaming service Tubi — which on Sunday is set to carry a 4K stream of Super Bowl 59.
In addition to Tubi, Fox has an existing paid streaming service called “Fox Nation,” but it does not include content from its linear networks.
No firm details were given on the service, but Murdoch suggested that it would be priced in line with the company’s modest subscriber expectation.
