There’s been a lot of discussion about what the price would be for Venu Sports, the joint streaming venture from ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery that’s set to launch this fall. Some of that discussion dates back even before the name for this venture was announced, and it generally seemed to settle on the service costing around $50 a month. That may still be where it winds up before long, but Venu announced Thursday that they’ll launch (at an unspecified point “this fall”) with a price of $42.99 a month.
That launch price will be guaranteed for 12 months for those who sign up under it, with the ability to cancel at any time. The service will also offer a seven-day free trial. Here’s more on it from a release:
Venu Sports, the upcoming standalone streaming service being built through a joint venture to be established by ESPN, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery, will be available at a launch price of $42.99 per month for the service, with a seven-day free trial. Anyone signing up for Venu’s launch price will be able to receive the service for that same price for 12-months from time of sign-up, with the ability to cancel at any time. Targeted at sports fans outside the traditional pay TV bundle, Venu is planning a launch in the U.S. in the fall and will offer thousands of live sports events from all the major professional sports leagues and top college conferences. The streaming service will provide access to 14 live sports channels and an expansive library of on-demand content from the collective companies’ portfolios of sports networks and ESPN+.
“With an impressive portfolio of sports programming, Venu will provide sports fans in the U.S. with a single destination for watching many of the most sought-after games and events,” said Pete Distad, CEO of the upcoming Venu Sports service. “We’re building Venu from the ground up for fans who want seamless access to watch the sports they love, and 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.”
There definitely is an argument that this launch price is “compelling.” As we discussed in an analysis of NFL chief media and business officer Brian Rolapp’s March comments criticizing the joint venture and promoting virtual multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) YouTube TV instead, even a $50 price for this and separate subscriptions to Peacock and Paramount+ (plus a subscription to Amazon’s Prime Video, not included in either this or YouTube TV) would be a cheaper way to get all in-market NFL games ($68 a month) than YouTube TV ($73) at that point. Peacock has since hiked its price by $2 a month, but the $70 with Venu at $50 would still beat a YouTube TV subscription. With Venu at $43, that cost would drop to $63 a month, $10 below YouTube TV (and even more below most traditional cable or satellite options and other vMVPDs.)
And that projection’s for those who want to make sure they have all of the NFL, and want to do so without an antenna. The CBS and NBC games can be seen for free on local affiliates with an antenna, which would further reduce the cost. (So can the Fox and ABC ones, but they’ll be included in Venu.) So Venu may be quite a useful option for those looking to get the live content from ESPN, TNT, TBS, and FS1, which are the crucial channels for sports that still require a MVPD package at this point. (And this is about much more than just the NFL; other notable things here include NBA regular-season and postseason games, MLB regular-season and postseason games, college football and basketball, and a whole lot else.) It’s one of just several planned options from ESPN, but it’s a notable one, and it’s set to come out a full year ahead of ESPN’s own full direct-to-consumer offering.
We’ll see how many people sign up for Venu around this yet-to-be-revealed launch date. But the pricing here will certainly have many intrigued. And while many of the executives involved have talked up how this service is targeting those who don’t have existing MVPD bundles (perhaps to downplay antitrust concerns ; Venu is facing a lawsuit from Fubo , and there have been some questions for it from members of Congress as well), this could be a worthwhile switch for many at this cost. And yes, the price may rise before long, but it’s certainly notable to see them not only offer this launch price but guarantee that those who sign up under it can keep that price for a year.
There’s a lot still to be revealed about Venu Sports, including that specific launch date. But we know who’s working on it , we may have seen a preview of the app , and we now have the launch price. And it will be worth watching this closely as we get to the actual launch. There’s potential here for this service to bring a lot of change to how many consume sports TV.
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