For American sports fans, a big piece of good news is coming - the three famous sports broadcasting companies in the United States are collaborating to create a new super platform, sharing their sports copyright assets under a streaming "roof" to create the strongest sports streaming service in history.
With the industry rapidly shifting from cable television to streaming services, this was an unimaginable move in the past.
On Tuesday, February 6th local time, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery Channel, and Disney's ESPN jointly announced that they will launch a sports streaming service later this autumn to attract young viewers who usually don't watch TV much. These three companies have not yet announced the pricing of the service.
These three media companies will form a joint venture to leverage their extensive portfolio of professional sports and university sports copyrights to create this new service. This unnamed service will provide an integrated program package that includes TV channels such as ESPN, TNT, and FS1, as well as streaming sports content. ESPN+, Hulu, and Max users will be able to access the service through a discount bundle agreement at that time.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement, "This means consumers can watch the full ESPN channel while watching sports programs from other industry-leading media."
It is reported that the new entity will be jointly owned by three media companies, which will have equal representation on the board of directors and agree to authorize its sports content in a non exclusive manner. An independent management team will be responsible for the operation of the new entity.
This sports event centered service indicates that people are recognizing a huge sports streaming market beyond traditional television. The platform aims to take advantage of this opportunity. It also provides these media companies with another way to help monetize increasingly expensive sports copyrights.
According to two insiders, CEOs have been discussing collaboration for some time now. According to sources familiar with the situation, partners generally believe that this sports event centered streaming service will provide consumers with more choices, rather than directly replacing Disney's ESPN or Fox's FS1. These TV channels have already covered a group of passionate sports fans through television.
Former Disney executive Bernard Gershon pointed out, "This is a wise defensive measure with huge potential for growth. As cable TV users continue to decline, new products should be launched in a timely manner. Whether on television or online, sports live streaming will continue to attract a large audience."
It is reported that the media copyright fees for the American Football League (NFL) have reached a staggering $110 billion (11 years). Gershon said about the logic behind the collaboration, "Let's come up with a way to share the cost when copyright fees rise. Let's create a platform to help people watch various sports events here and earn some revenue."
Complete the World Cup, NBA and other seasons in one go
From a specific copyright perspective, the integration of copyright resources on ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery Channel will ultimately cover a variety of popular sports such as football, basketball, rugby, golf, tennis, fighting, and racing.
Many well-known and hot competitions, such as the World Cup, European Championship, La Liga, and Bundesliga in the field of football; The NBA in the basketball field; Wimbledon, US Open in the tennis field, NFL in the rugby field, F1 in the racing field, UFC in the fighting field will all be covered.
"We believe that this service will provide a range of exciting sports content for sports enthusiasts beyond traditional bundled services in a new field," said Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox
"This new sports event service reflects our ability to drive industry innovation and provide consumers with more choices, enjoyment, and value," said David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery Channel, in a statement
Michael J. Wolf, a media analyst at Activate Consulting, pointed out that the new platform is expected to attract 40 million households in the United States who pay for high-speed Internet access but do not subscribe to pay TV. These all sports digital products may also attract Amazon, Apple, and Roku, who provide streaming video services to millions of consumers.
At present, neither the NBC television network under Comcast Corp. nor Paramount Global's CBS television network have announced their joining of this new platform. These two companies are also major sports broadcasting companies in the United States, with broadcasting rights for NFL and other leagues.
After the above news came out, the stock prices of Warner Bros. Exploration and Fox both rose by about 3% in after hours trading on Tuesday, with only Disney's stock price falling by about 1%. Disney will release its latest financial report after hours on Wednesday.