Paid-for TV providers have fiercely resisted putting sports, particularly live-action sports, onto streaming services. Venu, an upcoming American service that bundles most of the sporting events the Yanks are inexplicably ‘world champions’ at (and some regular competitions too), could be the catalyst to change all that.
Venu is a collaboration between several American platforms, namely ESPN (which is owned by Disney), Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The upcoming platform was first announced in February this year and now there’s an approximate launch — Fall. Or, as we like to call it in the Southern Hemisphere, Spring.
Quite the Venu
Historically, traditional satellite and cable providers have maintained a death grip on sporting content on their platforms. This is because it retains customers on what is increasingly seen as overpriced subscriptions for the companies concerned. This new approach could signal the end of all that, both in the States and around the rest of the world.
Not that the change hasn’t been coming for some time. Even Multichoice, which has stubbornly avoided putting its sporting content on Showmax’s Entertainment package, has chilled out a little in recent years. This has been helped along by sporting bodies taking the reigns for their sports, leading to free FIFA and rugby apps offering streaming content to fans, among others.
Venu could be the service that spawns dozens of copycats, provided the licensing can be sorted out. It might also spell a further slide for Multichoice here at home if our local broadcaster is forced to follow suit. But the Americans aren’t getting a sweetheart deal from this sports streaming partnership. A Venu subscription, which offers all NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL coverage plus most traditional sporting channels available in the US, will set fans back a little short of R800 ($43) a month. Since sports-packed DStv Premium starts at R930 a month, perhaps SA’s paid-for broadcaster doesn’t have to watch its back quite that hard after all.