Why streaming has yet to crack

Earlier this year, a bunch of sports fans took to Reddit to vent. “I used to like sports, then they made it damn near impossible to watch them,” wrote one Reddit user. “They make it harder and harder to find games, and even if you know where it is, you’ll need a myriad of subscriptions to watch,” added another commenter. “Definitely scaled back on my sports watching with all the fragmentation,” agreed a third Reddit user.

While the transition from traditional TV to streaming has been a boon for movie buffs and binge-watchers, many sports fans feel left behind. Most of the major leagues are still firmly wedded to traditional cable networks, making it nearly impossible for viewers to cut the cord. At the same time, sports television is getting increasingly scattered across multiple services, with companies like Apple, Amazon and even Netflix streaming key games as well.

All of this has sports fans wondering: Why did sports TV get so complicated? And how come there isn’t a Netflix of sports yet?

Why Venu failed to launch

It certainly isn’t for a lack of trying. The most recent attempt to create such a service is Venu Sports, which was supposed to launch in August. Backed by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, Venu aimed to combine the best of the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, plus a range of other sporting events. 

In addition to live and on-demand matches, the service also planned to offer linear feeds of sports-centric TV networks like ESPN, Fox Sports and the Big Ten Network, as well as broadcast and cable networks like ABC and TNT that regularly carry major sports events, for a monthly fee of $42.99. “We will launch at a compelling price point that will appeal to the cord cutter and cord never fans currently not served by existing pay TV packages,” said Venu Sports CEO Pete Distad when the company unveiled its launch plans in early August.

Those plans got derailed after online pay TV provider Fubo sued Venu’s owners over alleged antitrust violations. One week before Venu launched, a judge issued a temporary injunction that put the venture on hold for the time being. And with the Department of Justice reportedly preparing to side with Fubo, Venu’s future now seems uncertain.

At the core of the dispute is the TV industry’s long-established practice of bundling: Media companies like Disney sell their channels in bundles to TV operators. If a company like Fubo wants access to ESPN, it also needs to license a bunch of other, often less popular channels like Freeform and Disney Junior. 

Pay TV operators have long railed against such requirements, but TV networks generally had the upper hand in contract negotiations. Fubo’s lawsuit essentially alleges that Venu’s owners exempted their own service from these requirements because they wanted to have it both ways: Keep pay TV operators locked into contracts that require them to pay for big bundles while at the same time offering sports fans who aren’t willing to pay $100 or more for cable per month anymore a cheaper, smaller and more targeted bundle – which could ultimately lead to even more cord cutting. 

“The defendants’ own internal documents estimate that between 50 and 70% of [Venu’s] subscribers will be viewers who drop a current [pay TV] subscription to instead subscribe to [Venu],” the court found in its August ruling.

A window of opportunity

While networks and TV service operators are fighting, others are pushing ahead. Looking to bolster their own online video services, big tech companies are increasingly acquiring sports rights directly from the major leagues. 

Amazon spent $11 billion to exclusively stream Thursday Night Football on Prime; the e-commerce giant also recently won the rights to stream 60 NBA games per season starting in 2025. Apple struck a 10-year, $2.5 billion deal for the MLS in 2022, and has shown interest in a range of other sporting events. Netflix, which long abstained from sports altogether, will stream its first two NFL games on Christmas Day this year.

But it’s not just the big names that are looking for alternatives to traditional TV distribution. Smaller sports leagues are increasingly discovering free, ad-supported streaming services as a way to grow their audience, and monetize events. One of the services benefiting from this trend is Sverve Combat, a free 24/7 streaming channel founded by former Roku executive Steve Shannon. 

Swerve Combat streams boxing and MMA fights from leagues a level or two below the UFC. Shannon has found that there’s sizeable audience for these events, in part because the UFC has gotten so expensive: In addition to signing up for Disney’s ESPN+ service, fans regularly need to dole out $80 per fight. “It’s crazy how much of the sport is behind the paywall,” Shannon says.

Encouraged by the traction Swerve Combat is getting, Shannon wants to soon launch a second channel dedicated to women sports—another area that doesn’t get as much attention from the major sports networks. And he’s betting that the big networks will keep struggling with the transition to streaming, giving smaller players like his company an in.

“I knew sports would be the last bastion of hope for pay TV,” Shannon says, arguing that the industry’s focus on traditional TV opened up a window of opportunity. “We wanted to be early,” he says. 

However, for some sports fans, that window may already be closing. One of the aforementioned Reddit commenters admitted that the sorry state of sports streaming drove him to look for other pastimes. “Now, I play online games instead,” he wrote. “Same sort of satisfaction, but none of the shenanigans.”

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