Venu Sports Called Off in Wake of Disney-FuboTV Deal

Last year, three broadcasting giants announced plans for a joint venture that looked poised to reshape the sports streaming world; Venu Sports would have combined programming from ESPN, Fox Sports and Warner Bros. Discovery. The logic behind this wasn’t hard to see, with streaming services like Netflix expanding into sports themselves.

But the first week of 2025 brought with it the news that Disney would combine Hulu’s live television offerings with FuboTV, a change in strategy that made Venu look a bit less like a priority. And now, the three partners behind Venu have announced what’s next for Venu Sports, which is to say: nothing.

“After careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture and not launch the streaming service,” the three companies said in a joint statement. “In an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels.” They went on to pledge their “support through this transition period” to existing Venu staff.

As The Verge’s Emma Roth pointed out, Venu Sports encountered a number of obstacles since it was announced, including an antitrust lawsuit and lawmakers raising alarms over the possibility that the new venture would violate existing laws.

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This is the latest development in what could be a seismic shift in how Americans watch sports. For their part, other competitors in the broadcasting field seemed to be reacting with cautious optimism to the news. A spokesperson for DirecTV said that the company “[looked] forward to working with our programming partners — including Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery — to compete on a level playing field to deliver sports fans more choice, control and value all-in-one experience.”

In the wake of Netflix acquiring broadcast rights to the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cup, Puck’s John Ourand observed that Netflix would have the opportunity to dramatically expand its own portfolio of live sports in the coming years. How we’ll watch sports in the near future is still up for debate, but with Venu Sports stifled before it began, we do know one place where we won’t be watching games.