Credit: Inside the MagicDisney is not going to let a federal injunction shut down its dream of cornering the streaming sports market.
Almost exactly a month ago, the planned launch of Venu Sports, the massive new streaming platform that promised to combine the sports networks of The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox, was shut down over potential antitrust issues.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett granted FuboTV, a rival sports streaming platform, a preliminary injunction against the new joint venture, stating, “Once [Venu Sports] launches, [Disney, Warner, and Fox] have no reason to take actions that could allow for the emergence of direct competitors.
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Unsurprisingly, the fallout from that decision has been intense. It directly led to the collapse of negotiations between Disney and DirecTV; the latter claimed that the Mouse House was insisting that the pay-TV company waive legal rights over potential monopolistic practices for the privilege of carrying the Disney Channel and ESPN.
Although the two companies have since come to a new agreement, it is telling that Judge Garnett’s decision rattled Disney so much that it is already making plans to ensure that no partner companies can argue with it.
Now, Venu Sports has formally filed an appeal in the Second Circuit against the preliminary injunction, asking that it be reversed and, essentially, Disney, Warner Bros., and Fox be allowed to do whatever they want (per Deadline).
The filing boldly claims that three of the largest media companies banding together to corner a streaming niche is actually the most competitive thing that can happen for the marketplace, saying, “The ruling denies consumers a new, lower-cost, innovative product—so as to protect Fubo from increased competition. That is the opposite of what the antitrust laws seek to achieve.”
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Moreover, the filing claims that Venu Sports cannot be anti-competitive because consumers can get all of the content elsewhere; that seems to imply that there’s no actual purpose to the streaming service, but that’s not really the question at hand. The filing states:
“Venu would have no exclusive content; every network available on Venu would remain available to consumers via other MVPDs. Venu also would lack many widely viewed sports and non-sports networks. For example, it would not carry CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and many others. Venu would provide an additional, lower-cost option by offering a subset of the networks MVPDs typically carry at a lower price. Thus, Venu’s entry would increase output and lower prices. Fubo (a competitor) might not like that, but consumers would, and consumers are the appropriate focus of antitrust law.”
The appeal is currently pending, but whichever way it goes, this will have a huge impact on sports fans and the streaming wars.
Would you sign up for Venu Sports if it’s available?