Walt Disney’s ESPN, FOX, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s planned sports-streaming joint venture just got thrown a legal roadblock thanks to Fubo. Last week, Fubo sued to stop this joint venture, arguing it would damage cable TV. Now the future of not just Fubo but cable TV in general may rest in the hands of Fubo as it tries to fight the mega giant of a combined Disney, FOX, and Warner Bros. Discovery.
The live streaming service is suing to block the joint venture and alleges in a lawsuit that three media giants stole from the Fubo playbook and this new venture is the latest attempt in a years-long campaign to block its business.
“Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anticompetitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers and cheat consumers from deserved choice,” David Gandler CEO of Fubo said. “By joining together to exclusively reserve the rights to distribute a specialized live sports package, we believe these corporations are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors from entering the market.”
Fubo wants one of two things: to stop the joint venture and prevent it from launching or to force these media giants to allow them to also offer a similar sports-only package.
For years cable TV and streaming services have been forced to offer a large bundle of channels if the customer wants access to sports channels. Disney, for example, reportedly forces cable TV and streaming services to carry the Disney Channel, FX, and other channels in their base package to have access to ESPN.
This requirement to bundle cable TV networks has prevented these small sports-only cable TV bundles that many have tried to create. Now the cable channel owners are cutting out the middleman and plan to launch a sports-only bundle that is expected to undercut cable TV.
This raises serious questions about the future of cable TV and even some streaming services like Fubo. Will subscribers leave cable TV at even faster rates to switch to cord cutting through this new joint venture? It is possible, and Fubo seems to be extremely concerned about that.
For now, we will have to wait and see what happens in court.
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