 | |
| Type of business | Joint venture |
|---|---|
Type of site | OTT video streaming platform |
| Area served | United States |
| Owner |
|
| Key people | Pete Distad (CEO) |
| URL | venu |
| Current status | Launch temporarily blocked under a preliminary injunction[1] |
Venu Sports, or simply Venu (/ˈvɛnju/), is a proposed sports-focused streaming service in the United States, to be operated as a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (via its majority-owned subsidiary ESPN Inc.), Fox Corporation (owner of Fox Sports), and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD, owner of TNT Sports). Announced on February 6, 2024, it was originally scheduled to launch by fall 2024, with each of the three partners owning one-third of the venture, subject to the negotiation of final contracts between them.
Venu would bundle virtually all of the U.S. national sports broadcast rights controlled by the three companies in a single subscription, with limited entertainment and news content. The service would be available as a standalone product, or sold as part of a bundle with one of the companies' other streaming platforms like Disney+, Hulu, or Max.
The joint venture partners have said Venu would be specifically targeted to cord-cutters and cord-nevers who do not currently subscribe to either a traditional cable or satellite TV package, or an existing mainstream virtual MVPD such as FuboTV or YouTube TV. This has been disputed by some existing TV providers, which have argued the launch of Venu will directly result in fewer subscriptions to their services. Government officials have also raised concerns about the venture's impact on competition. On August 16, 2024, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction to block the venture's launch after FuboTV filed an antitrust lawsuit against the partners.