FuboTV filed the lawsuit two weeks after ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu announced they planned to launch a sports-streaming service.

United States District Judge Margaret M. Garnett in the Southern District of New York said in her 69-page ruling that Fubo was likely to succeed in proving that the joint venture would violate antitrust laws and that Fubo and consumers "would suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction”.

FuboTV said in its filing that it has tried for years to offer a sports-only streaming service but has been prevented from doing so by ESPN. Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have imposed bundling requirements on FuboTV that Fubo claims force it to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to license and carry content that its customers do not want or need.

Venu Sports announced on August 1 that it would be available for $42.99 per month with a planned launch in the autumn. The platform would include offerings from 14 linear networks - ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS, truTV - as well as ESPN+. Subscribers would have the option to bundle the product with Disney+, Hulu and/or Max. Venu Sports CEO Pete Distad said in a statement about the plans to launch at an attractive price point that should appeal to cord-cutting fans and fans not currently served by existing pay-TV packages. ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery will each own a third of the joint venture.

Streaming platforms and broadcasters need to find a way to share this content without litigation, without disputes. This cake can be sliced into many pieces, and each content provider can make money and give their subscribers and viewers satisfaction and what they really want to watch.

This situation could be the start of a debate on the right to watch sport. A few questions came to my mind. Events such as the Olympics, the World Cup, the EURO and many others belong to society. Citizens pay taxes and national teams are largely sponsored by their money. Shouldn't that mean they have the right to watch games and athletes representing their countries or states for free wherever they want? Isn't it a kind of human, constitutional right to have access to this entertainment?

We can be sure that TV channels and streaming platforms will fight for every profit opportunity. But sport is different, it makes people happy, it brings families, communities, states, countries, the whole world together. The market has to find a way, a solution to this problem, it won't be easy to balance cost and profit and people's enjoyment, but I strongly believe it can be done.

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#SzymonKarbowski #StreamVX #Fox #ESPN #WarnerBrosDiscovery #VenuSports #FuboTV #StreamingSportsPlatforms #broadcasters #ABC #Disney #Hulu #Max

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