Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said his company, The Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery are in a two-minute drill to get their streaming sports joint venture to market.
“We’ve already launched an internal beta service, which I have been trialing this past week,” Murdoch said on Fox’s earnings call Wednesday. “And I have to say it’s an incredibly exciting product and we can’t wait to launch it this fall.”
Under CEO Pete Distad, the joint venture has already hired more than 150 engineers and executives who are “dedicated to building a unique, innovative product, which focuses on sports fans outside of the traditional TV bundle,” Murdoch said.
Apparently, the service does have a name but it hasn’t been announced yet. Murdoch went out of his way to make sure he didn’t inadvertently spill those beans.
One analyst pointed out that in Disney’s filings, it was noted that the final definitive agreement among the three partners had not been signed.
“I wouldn’t read anything into final deal terms being signed,“ Murdoch said. “It’s just a matter of everyone running on all cylinders to get this finished.”
While Murdoch has been able to test the platform’s interface, he noted that “there’s a ton of work and engineering behind that in ingesting content from multiple partners and being able to combine that into one seamless platform.”
Asked if Fox’s streaming platform Tubi might be linked to the new sports venture, Murdoch said it was more likely the venture would be bundled with other SVOD services.
Murdoch didn’t address the antitrust suit brought by Fubo against the venture.
