A jury trial of Fubo’s antitrust lawsuit against Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery will start October 6, 2025, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
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U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett issued an order setting out the timeline for the case, including several key dates leading up to the trial for motions and discovery. While some alterations could be made to the schedule along the way, Garnett wrote, “the start date for the trial, in particular, should be treated as firm.”
Fubo, a pay-TV provider with nearly 1.5 million subscribers, filed the suit last February after the media companies announced they had formed a streaming joint venture, Venu Sports. Offering linear feeds of 15 sports-focused networks, the service was to have launched last month at a cost of $43 a month, significantly lower than what full-scale providers like Fubo charge. The company decried Venu as a monopolistic venture and, in a stunning ruling last month, Garnett agreed. She granted the company’s preliminary injunction request, which has prevented Venu from launching pending an appeal.
The trial date is closer to Fubo’s preferred window than the defendants’, who had suggested February 2026. “With Venu on the sidelines for the moment, there is no need for a rush,” Fox attorney Andrew Levander told Garnett during a pretrial conference in Manhattan earlier Thursday. Disney attorney Antony Ryan argued that a February 2026 start would be “a fast schedule” by the standards of antitrust law.
Levander noted that there will be an “enormous amount” of discovery material requiring analysis in the coming months. Long-private details of carriage negotiations – a lucrative but highly secretive underpinning of the modern media business – are expected to come to light in discovery, both sides have acknowledged .
The case has drawn attention in both sports and media circles not only for its rare window onto the inner workings of pay-TV but also given related developments in recent months as traditional media reckons with streaming. Disney has been in ongoing carriage fight with DirecTV since September 1, with the distributor citing Venu as a reason Disney hasn’t wanted to agree on a fair deal. Disney-owned ESPN, meanwhile, says it plans to launch a stand-alone streaming service of its own less than a year from now. And WBD over the summer lost rights to the NBA starting with the 2025-26 season, which changes what it would be bringing to the Venu party.
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Garnett noted two factors that could potentially accelerate the trial schedule. One would be if the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sides with the Venu JV partners and lifts her preliminary injunction order, allowing Venu to launch. The other would be if the judge decides to grant any coming motions to dismiss any of the counts in the Fubo complaint, thereby simplifying the case.
In the full lawsuit, Fubo has alleged multiple violations of antitrust law, attacking the approach to distribution negotiations by the three Venu partners. Their practices have driven prices higher and create a business impairment for Fubo, the company has argued, by forcing it to pay to carry less-watched networks in exchange for gaining access to the more preferred ones. Fubo also says it had sought to launch a sports-only service but was rebuffed by the same companies that teamed on Venu.
Garnett said the trial would likely take about a month to complete.
During the pretrial conference, the judge floated the possibility of a “bifurcated” process, with the underlying claims in the Fubo suit tried separately since they rely on different legal concepts and precedents. While the defense expressed some support for that scheme, Fubo attorney Mark Hansen pushed back against it. “We see bifurcation as a path to inefficiency and delay,” he said.
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