Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery just want to get their new streaming sports venture onto the playing field.
The three media giants urged the court on Monday for an early appeal against the closure of their Venu sports streamer, noting that they had already spent $74 million on the joint venture and that the courts had “taken the extraordinary action” of debut of the sports streamer. “a new, consumer-friendly product just weeks before it was due to hit the market.”
The appeal, filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, comes just ten days after a U.S. District Court judge barred the trio from launching the new property after complaints from FuboTV, a sports-focused streaming service that delayed the launch claimed. van Venu would make it bankrupt. The judge ruled that Fubo would likely prevail on claims that the new broadband entity would “substantially diminish competition and restrain trade.” Fubo was launched in 2015 as a startup focused on streaming sports programming.
“Appellants are losing tens of millions of dollars they invested in a start-up company that failed to enter the market, dozens of employees hired to work for Venu are left in limbo, and consumers are being denied access to the market. innovative new product that Venu would have delivered and the increased competition that would result from a new product offering,” the three major media companies said in their legal filing.
Warner, Disney and Fox had hoped to launch Venu before the start of the new NFL season this fall. Now, the three said, they were hoping for an expedited call that would give them the opportunity to debut Venu “in time to compete for subscribers prior to or during college and NFL playoff games, including
the College Football Playoff National Championship, which future JV member Disney will broadcast on ESPN on January 20, and the Super Bowl, which future JV member Fox will broadcast on February 9, 2025.”
The three companies said the licenses they granted Venu to operate their sports networks were non-exclusive – and that the cost of the service, $42.99 per month, was cheaper than the prices charged by larger cable and satellite distributors were brought. They also said that some of the parties that operate their sports networks, such as Fubo, “already have long-term agreements that guarantee the terms on which these distributors license Appellants’ networks.”
Fox, Warner and Disney will each pay a third of Venu’s start-up costs, the companies said in the filing, and each can launch other services offering their sports programming. Warner, for example, has added a sports tier to its Max streaming service, while ESPN is working to launch a standalone direct-to-consumer service it’s calling Flagship.
The three media companies have outlined plans for an appeal, for which oral arguments will take place in court in December this year.