Will Venu Sports Ever Launch? Here’s Where the Legal Battle Is At

Published: September 25, 2024

Will Venu Sports Ever Launch? Here’s Where the Legal Battle Is At

By Movieguide® Contributor

Venu Sports has appealed to the courts in an effort to go ahead with its plans to launch the sports streaming service.

Venu, backed by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit requesting permission to launch their streaming platform, as well as reverse the injunction filed against them last month by competitor Fubo.

Movieguide® previously reported:

The launch of ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Venu Sports, dubbed “the future home of sports streaming,” has been temporarily blocked after Fubo, a smaller sports streaming platform, requested a preliminary injunction.

Per ESPN, “United States District Judge Margaret M. Garnett in the Southern District of New York said in her 69-page ruling Friday that Fubo was likely to be successful in proving that the joint venture would violate antitrust laws and that Fubo and consumers would ‘face irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction.’”

Judge Garnett ruled that there was “significant evidence” to Fubo’s claims that Fox, Disney and Warner Bros. control even more than the 54% of U.S. sports rights they already claim to.

“This means that alone, Disney, Fox, and [Warner Bros. Discovery] are each significant players in live sports licensing, who otherwise compete against each other both to secure sports telecast rights and to attract viewers to their live sports programming. But together, they are dominant,” she said in her ruling.

Venu’s filing argues that the injunction “denies consumers a new, lower-cost, innovative product — so as to protect Fubo from increased competition. That is the opposite of what the antitrust laws seek to achieve,” per Deadline.

They also argued that Fubo “might not like” their offering of increased output and lower prices, “but consumers would.”

However, Fubo claims that Venu’s bundling practices are designed to put them and other competitors out of business.

Their antitrust lawsuit is also aimed at “the bargaining approach of programmers,” according to Deadline, “which the company says have forced it to carry less-desirable channels in order to gain access to the most coveted ones. The result, Fubo says, is higher prices for consumers.”

Fubo has until Nov. 4 to file a response to Venu’s appeal.