For years, the rising price of sports rights has been a major headache for media executives, who have watched viewers abandon traditional TV for streaming services even as their companies continue to pay up to broadcast games.
On Tuesday, Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery proposed a new offering that could keep them in business with some of those customers. The companies announced a streaming service that will feature games from the major professional leagues and college conferences, which they hope will attract sports fans who have abandoned cable.
The service will offer streaming subscribers all the channels owned by those companies that show sports, like ESPN, TNT and FS1, but also ABC and Fox. In addition to sports content, subscribers will be able to watch nonsports shows like “The Simpsons” and “The Bachelor” that are available on the channels. Subscribers will have access to 14 channels in total, as well as ESPN’s existing streaming service, ESPN+.
The price, name and executive team behind the service have not yet been determined. It is scheduled to launch in the fall.
Sports and live events, like award shows, have long been seen as a bulwark against cord cutting. Rich Greenfield, a media analyst at LightShed Partners, said in an interview that he was encouraged by the new service, which is likely to satisfy some sports viewers who are fed up with paying for traditional TV channels they don’t want. But he said the absence of companies like Paramount meant that die-hard fans still wouldn’t have access to a complete array of live sports.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Mr. Greenfield said. “The question is: Is it enough?”
In some ways, this bundle of channels is an evolution, not a revolution. The companies already sell their channels to traditional cable distributors like Comcast and Charter, and to digital distributors, like Sling and YouTube TV. The new service is essentially just another distributor to sell channels to, though the companies collectively own it and the grouping of channels being offered to subscribers is novel.
