Sports television joint ventures make sense in theory.
Resources are shared. Marketing is in sync. The reach of a production becomes wider. And because of all of those things put together, fans become more aware of particular events and platforms available.
Every March, the country witnesses a sports television joint venture achieve peak success seamlessly year after year when CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery partner to broadcast March Madness . Canadians also bear witness to a successful joint venture of sorts as Rogers Communications produces CBC’s Saturday night NHL broadcasts that have been Canadian lore for decades. Rogers will add more NHL telecasts for outside partners to its stable when it produces Monday night broadcasts for Amazon Prime viewers next season. Before the NFL moved to Prime, the league also utilized joint venture partnerships with CBS, NBC, and Fox to up the ante of production on Thursday Night Football.
Recently though, we’ve seen the perils of sports television joint ventures gone awry. Venu Sports is a joint venture streaming service from ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox Sports. It has yet to launch after it was recently sued by FuboTV. The MVPD accused Venu of unfair channel bundling practices. A preliminary injunction was put in place which prevented Venu from launching before the college football and NFL seasons. If it had launched, it would’ve been a skinny bundle of Disney, WBD, and Fox’s sports channels and broadcast affiliates.
At the moment, Venu and Fubo are getting set for a trial that begins in October 2025 . Depending on the appeals process of the injunction and the trial, Venu Sports sees its survival hanging in the balance. The streamer’s owners have dedicated themselves to continuing their legal battle against FuboTV for now but the future looks bleak for the joint venture that has reportedly already hired 127 employees. Venu Sports would not be the first sports television joint venture that ended up going awry.
Bally Sports RSNs
Bally Sports has been through its own share of court cases and has been slowly treading water aiming for survival. In 2021, as Sinclair Broadcasting acquired the nation’s largest stable of regional sports networks from Disney, the infrastructure of local sports rights was already coming into question. But Sinclair believed they would be able to maximize revenue streams by pairing local sports with the local news operations they already operated across the country.
On launch day, the regional sports networks celebrated their new ownership and rebranding with a huge party. A whiparound show aired across all of the RSNs nationwide celebrating the transition, showcasing the new studio upgrades some markets received, and previewing the seasons for all of Bally Sports’ baseball teams.
Unfortunately, for Bally Sports though, celebration would turn into turmoil as customers continued to cut the cord from their cable bills. Bally Sports tried to respond by launching a direct-to-consumer app but it could not keep up economically with the pace of consumer choice. The name Bally Sports comes from a naming rights deal between the RSN’s parent company Diamond Sports and Bally’s Corporation which owns casinos and an online sportsbook. The deal called for Bally’s to pay Diamond $85 million over 10 years to promote their brand on RSNs, attach their name to the networks, and boost usage of their sportsbook as gambling was legalized across the country. Unfortunately, according to Sports Business Journal , Bally Bet was only available in two of the states where Diamond’s RSNs operate.
The Baseball Network
Disney and NBC have also had their share of previous joint ventures that failed. One of the ventures that collapsed wasn’t solely organized by both parties even though their networks were involved. In 1994, Major League Baseball attempted to launch its own network which would live on ABC and NBC. It was literally known as The Baseball Network . Nationally televised games would air on Saturdays or Mondays on ABC and then switch over to Fridays on NBC. The league produced its own games with talent from both networks. Unfortunately, they made a fatal mistake that would end the joint venture after one year.
The league decided that playoff games should be aired on a regional basis rather than on a national scale. Viewers didn’t have access to the playoff game of their choice . The experiment didn’t last long. Due to the 1994 players’ strike and mass criticism of the product, the league and the networks shut the experiment down. It was supposed to last for six years but ended up lasting for half of a season having launched at All-Star break.
The Olympic Channel
Exposing stars more brightly is always the nucleus of how these joint venture conversations even happen. It’s why NBC and the IOC came together to launch the American version of The Olympic Channel. Star athletes like Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt were able to capture the hearts and minds of Americans during the Olympic Games before disappearing into the sunset until the road to the next Games launched them into the spotlight again. NBC and the IOC wanted to figure out a way to continue the momentum during off years.
An Olympic sports network already existed before The Olympic Channel. Universal Sports was a network owned by private equity firm InterMedia Partners. It was the home to IAAF track and field, international swimming, and gymnastics among other sports. NBC owned a minority stake in the network. Unfortunately, the network shut down in 2015 . But its tenets and rights would eventually remerge with the Olympic Channel in 2017.
During the 2018 Winter Olympics, the network served as a home for highlights and news . NBC’s Jimmy Roberts also served as an occasional host on the network. The biggest problem with the channel though is that besides airing competitions during the Olympic off years, the channel itself never actually showed any live Olympics actions until 2020 .
None of the major sports that are known for producing stars like swimming, gymnastics, or track and field had any of their competitions airing on the network, therefore fans didn’t really know of its existence. The network was also competing with NBC Sports Network for their parent company’s love and attention. Unfortunately, the network would shut down again for good in 2022, one year after NBCSN’s goodbye. Both networks still have a quasi-presence on NBC’s streaming service – Peacock.
Barstool Van Talk
Despite the quick shutdown of The Olympic Channel, nothing was as abrupt as the ending of Barstool Van Talk. ESPN noticed the emergence of Barstool Sports and its young fan base and wanted a piece of it. They also noticed a pair that were dominating the podcast charts. Dan Katz and PFT Commenter, hosts of Pardon My Take , are still one of the country’s most listened-to podcasts. Barstool Sports was known for crossing the line at times and unfortunately for them, one of those times came back to bite.
Samantha Ponder, a former host at the network, tweeted her frustration with the website being given a slot on the lineup. She shared screenshots of a blog that referred to Ponder as “a chick that has a job where the #1 requirement is you make men hard,” according to Deadline. Furthermore, there was a screenshot of the folks at Barstool telling Ponder to “go F herself.” The screenshots were a microcosm of what many staffers were feeling at ESPN at the time. One ESPN staffer was quoted telling SI “God bless Sam Ponder.”
Pressure within the company and on social media convinced ESPN’s former President John Skipper to cancel the show after airing one episode. Skipper said that ESPN had the approval of content on the show but that he erred on thinking the network could distance itself from “the Barstool site and its content.” Many years later, ESPN would finally find a way to reach a younger fan base in Barstool alum Pat McAfee in what is currently the most prominent joint venture in sports television: The noon-2 p.m. time slot on ESPN.
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