The long-rumored and even previously teased sports streaming service from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery is official ... Venu Sports.
Opinions about the name aside (a resounding "meh" from this writer), it takes us one step closer to the arrival of this new sports-focused streaming service. Especially since, along with announcing the name, we also found out how much this first-of-its-kind streaming service will cost — $43 a month.
That price is a major red flag for me, and should probably be a deal-breaker for you. When this streaming service was first officially teased, I put forth that its price could be a major problem. In my analysis, I said that its rumored price point of $45-50 a month was too high and this streaming service needed to come in closer to $30 a month for it to be an attractive offering.
While the joint venture thankfully, came under its original proposed price point, $43 a month is still too expensive for the average TV consumer. Some cable alternatives, like Sling TV, cost less per month, and for just less than $30 a month more, you can get YouTube TV which, at the moment, seems to be more feature-rich and includes a significant offering of channels beyond just sports.
Venu Sports isn't good value for most cord cutters — and that's intentional
As a refresher, below is a full list of everything you can potentially expect to be on the streaming service, which combines Disney's (ESPN) sports networks, Fox's sports networks and Warner Bros. Discovery's (Turner) sports networks.
- Disney: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Plus, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, SSPN PLUS and ABC
- Warner Bros. Discovery: TNT, TBS and TruTV
- Fox: Fox, FS1, FS2 and BTN
These networks do give you a lot of live sports, including college football, college basketball, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and more.
But that's all you get. If you want something beyond sports, you'll still need to sign up for a streaming service, a cable TV alternative or possibly both unless you're willing to rely on free streaming services to supplement your paid live sports streaming service.
That would be one thing if Venu Sports gave you access to every sport (or close to it). If that were the case, you'd still have my attention at $43. But it doesn't, because Venu is noticeably missing live sports from NBC's networks, Peacock or CBS Sports.
Missing these networks really hurts Venu's value proposition to customers, because it means fans don't even always get access to an entire league's games. Are you an NBA fan? Well, this year you'll get every NBA game but starting in 2025, you'll miss out on games shown on NBC and Amazon Prime Video.
Love watching NFL live streams all season long? Well, Venu will give you about half the NFL games, but it'll miss out on primetime games on Sunday (NBC) and Thursday (Prime Video) nights, half the Sunday day games (CBS), and marquee matchups on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas Day (Netflix).
If you're currently thinking that [Venu Sports isn't for you], you're probably not Venu Sports' target audience.
So not only if you want to watch things other than sports will you need to subscribe to other services, but if you want to watch all the biggest live sports events you'll still need to subscribe to other services.
You're probably thinking to yourself, "Well that's dumb. Why would they offer such a half-baked streaming service?"
The truth? If you're currently thinking that, you're probably not Venu Sports' target audience. You're probably someone who already has cable, a cable alternative and/or any combination of streaming services. And if you are someone who has subscriptions to one of those various offerings, Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery probably already have you as a customer.
Venu Sports is very specifically aimed at cord-cutters (or would-be cord-cutters) who only want live sports. This is intentionally a niche offering and it's not expected to upend the streaming service market, but instead cover a gap to ensure subscriber growth for these media companies when they do their quarterly reports to stockholders. If it manages to do that, then these companies can still call it a success.
