What Early Details Around The Venu Streaming Service Tell Us
After months of speculation following the news from earlier this year that Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery would combine forces for a sports streaming service — later revealed to be called Venu — more details are emerging in advance of its fall debut.
Some of the specifics include a price ($42.99 per month) and early looks at the app’s presentation, which are in line with what we’re used to from all of today’s mainstream streamers. The service, like the network groups it’s co-owned by, will have a mix of live events, studio coverage and library content including documentaries. As expected, it’ll be like having the ESPN family of networks, Fox/Fox Sports 1 and TNT/TBS, but without the TV packages (or non-sports TNT/TBS programming) that previously came with the deal.
On the price front, the $42.99 price point sounds aggressive, primarily because of what you’re not getting with it.
YouTube TV’s basic tier is $73 per month, while DirecTV Stream is $80. Spectrum and other cable services have $70 packages, too. And while that’s all nearly twice the cost of Venu’s monthly fee, those other packages include at least 100 channels AND virtually all of the sports content a fan might want — instead of just a smattering of it.
The price point also sheds some light on where ESPN’s coming direct-to-consumer service’s own monthly subscription cost could come in. With ESPN incorporated as part of a larger $42.99 service, there’s no chance a solo ESPN service can cost more than that per month. And realistically, it probably needs to cost at least $10 less (per month) than Venu to make any sense for consumers to sign up for the ESPN app instead of Venu.
On the other hand, however, the ESPN app has to make a profit and there’s a lower limit on how much a subscription can cost before parent company Disney finds itself losing money on yet another service. Sure, ads are inherently part of the deal to begin with when it comes to sports content. But still, the Venu price point gives ESPN less room to work with both now and in the future.
Venu being close to launch also tells us something we already know: This service will not be the answer to sports’ fans prayers, and inevitably annoys sports fans if it bills itself as such.
While Disney, Fox and WBD hold a good deal of sports rights within their own — and by extension, Venu’s — walls, a growing amount of sports content still won’t appear there.
Lacking inclusion of Paramount means parts of NFL Sundays are out, as are Big Ten games, half of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, plus PGA, international soccer (including Champions League) and some other college conference rights. No NBCUniversal means no Olympics, Sunday Night Football, Notre Dame, Big Ten primetime games, Premier League, Triple Crown races and next year, select NBA games. CBS and NBC are also in the Super Bowl rotation, so subscribers are missing the Big Game two of every four years.
Then there’s the growing streaming element, with the NBA and NFL games that appear on Amazon, and Netflix’s own sports aspirations like Thanksgiving NFL games.
Venu, like other streamers beyond Apple TV+, won’t circumvent local blackout rules, meaning it won’t even serve as a capable replacement for RSNs — or local broadcast deals that are becoming an increasing solution for teams caught up in that mess.
So with all of that said, who is Venu for?
Perhaps the casual sports viewer without strict allegiance to teams or sports just wants this and Netflix and will call it a day for less than you’ll pay for a basic MVPD package. But the small dollar-amount difference is negligible there when you consider what’s missing.
Is there someone that just wants SEC and/or ACC football games? Sure. But wouldn’t that person be better served by the standalone ESPN app when it launches and charges less money per month for a subscription?
The NHL is one of the only major sports entities with complete coverage on Venu. MLB has most, save a few streaming outliers, but also has the RSN element to contend with and Amazon’s footprint is growing there. You could’ve made the case Venu was worth it for NBA fans before the new TV deal effectively sent WBD’s package to Amazon. But now Venu is just a third of the puzzle.
Is there a way you could combine Venu with other services to give you a full look at sports on TV? Yeah, definitely. Venu ($43) plus Peacock ($8 at lowest end) and Paramount ($6) get you most of what you need for $57. So $16 less per month vs. YouTube TV’s lowest tier is a significant savings for many, but the benefits largely stop there.
Adding Amazon bumps it to $66, and Netflix makes it $73, and now you’re at the same cost of YouTube TV’s low-end deal, minus all of the other non-sports channels, and you still don’t have any RSNs included, so the cost of both would rise from there.
Perhaps the industry — self included — is missing something on Venu. But the math simply isn’t adding up right now for who this makes sense for, and why.
