Discussion
Topic: Screenplay
I’m surprised Disney is joining with other providers rather than creating an ESPN stand-alone app. If done correctly, this will really accelerate the death of linear cable. https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/warner-fox-espn-streaming-spots-joint-venture-1235900161/
3 comments
Craig S. And Netflix will be the home of WWE Monday Night Raw starting next year. Little by little all the live TV that still keeps cable barely alive will all be on streaming services.
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Russ Hoyt I wonder if Disney is thinking about buying in on this and then later buying the platform from the other partners later with a built in subscriber base? Similar to what happened with hulu.
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Ryan I think that would hard to pull off because the content is so valuable. Fox is paying the NFL over $2 billion a year just for their NFC Sunday afternoon rights alone.
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Russ Hoyt @ryan_3430 valid point. My thoughts weren’t fully formed when I made my last comment. Your point helped me clarify a little bit. I expect that at some point one or two of the other partners will leave the new venture to start their own exclusive streaming platform. This makes sense for now. Sports is still transitioning from broadcast/cable/satellite to streaming. This partnership helps reduce the expense by dividing it among the three partners. After the audience gets accustomed to viewing athletics this way, exclusive branded apps can be launched.
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Russ Hoyt @ryan_3430 another possibility is that later after it proving successful, one of the three could decide to out bid the one of the other parties for the rights if they believed that the return would be profitable enough. It would then be a two party partnership.
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Ryan I can definitely see either of those possibilities. I also think Fox is an acquisition target down the road. The already sold off their film division. They lease almost all their shows to Hulu. It’s going to be hard to cover their content costs as the revenue from their carriage fees dries up. (This already happened to the regional sports networks owned by Sinclair). If the stock goes low enough, I could see Disney trying to acquire Fox rather than buy them out of the partnership (if antitrust allows).
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