I’m arguably as passionate and diverse a sports fan as you will find, and based on how my life has been going of late I consider my media subscriptions to be sacrosanct priorities to keep my sanity. And since I don’t exactly have unlimited funds, I’m forever looking for ways to save a few bucks if possible.
So you bet I took notice yesterday when this update from VARIETY’s Brian Steinberg on something I’ve been paying a lot of disproportionate attention to dropped into my inbox:
Venu, the streaming joint venture backed by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery and built around the sports offerings of all three companies, will launch with an initial price tag of $42.99 per month. The service is expected to debut in the fall in conjunction with the start of the next NFL season.
“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 new outlet, in a statement. “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.”
Steinberg, as well as his counterpart Daniel Frankel at NEXT TV, tried to take positive approaches to this price point. Steinberg:
The price has long been expected to total more than a consumer would pay for a standalone regional sports network, which costs $20 to $30 per month, and less than a larger digital programming package such as Hulu + Live TV or YouTube TV, which cost around $75 to $80 per month.
And Frankel’s report added:
Venu Sports will be priced out of the gate at $42.99, a price point that will undercut the sports-focused — and frustrated — virtual MVPD operator partners of the streaming joint venture’s backers. Live games will originate from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, WNBA, NCAA Division I football and basketball, U.S. and international soccer, combat sports, Grand Slam tennis, championship golf and IndyCar, NASCAR and Formula 1 auto racing, among other sports sources.
But upon digging into the details, I would advise that those MVPDs might not all that much to worry about.
Here’s the array of networks that the Venu bundle will include:
ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV, as well as ESPN+.
Notice what’s missing? CBS/Paramount+ (not to mention CBSSN). NBC/Peacock (not to mention USA). And, especially based upon the events of the last month, Amazon Prime Video. That means that if I am a fan of the NFL, NBA, WNBA, NCAA Division I football and basketball, U.S. and international soccer or any of those auto racing tours, I’m missing out on a substantial portion of national broadcasts.
Oh yeah, all those RSNs, which just happen to the majority of the games of the teams I actually care about.
None other than David Hill, the revered architect of FOX Sports, cemented this truism into my head years ag0–“All sports are tribal”. Not only did that vision justify the investment FOX made in those regional sports networks, which despite their carriage issues still generate larger market-by-market ratings than almost all of those 14 national outlets for games involving those markets’ teams, but it also drove home the point that no matter where someone may be living, long-established loyalties to teams you grew up stay with you. When it comes to regional telecasts of the NFL, that belief explains why Jets and Giants games often air on local Los Angeles stations (and why Rams games often air in markets like Dallas and Austin). That fact also allows me to comfortably bypass the siren’s song of the now overpriced (for me) YouTube TV iteration of NFL SUNDAY TICKET, and instead allows me to “splurge” on MLB and NBA packages that cover my more parochial passions.
And as far as the actual Venu package goes, I’m already in on ESPN+ via the Disney bundle (with ads) at $9.99 a month, and I’m covered with the WBD networks via MAX at the same price (though the long-delayed add-on cost for the sports tier that is identical to what is being contributed to Venu at an additional $11/month is supposedly forthcoming, a move now on the back burner at least until the NBA rights mishagoss plays itself out).
So by process of elimination, I guess Distad and his burdgeoning team of analysts determined through modeling and consumer research that the chance to see and hear Tom Brady play analyst is worth about $23 a month. At least I’d like to think they did. But I’d merely ask those that did–who do they think their target consumer is?
Steinberg opines that target is someone I clearly am not:
Venu represents a bet by the three media companies that they can launch a thriving business built on the notion that some portion of younger consumers — the ones who don’t subscribe to traditional cable or satellite services — will find value in a broadband portal that offers access to a significant portion of sports available via traditional media. Venue (sic) plans to burnish the sports offerings of 14 different TV networks as well as a library of documentaries and other programs from the archives of ESPN, Fox Sports and others.
But if those younger viewers are indeed passionate enough fans to want something like this, there’s a strong likelihood they’re also gonna want the other networks I mentioned above. And plenty of them actually do like to watch something else besides sports.
All of a sudden, when you add all of that up, that YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV offering doesn’t seem so expensive. Even my Luddite DIRECTV package has options that make that competitive. And, believe me, when it comes to navigation, I’m still far more of a cheerleader for cable and satellite than I am for smart TV apps. Ever tried to wait while even a two-year old 4K TV loads all of those options? I have. It’s a far longer process than merely turning on my DIRECTV remote. I happen to have a two-TV set up that gives me both of those options at the same time. Wanna bet which one I use if I actually want to see an exciting conclusion to a game I care about?
As the prolific Alan Wolk chided in his TV REV newsletter that literally dropped into my inbox as this is being written:
(S)tubbornness on the part of all the players is what is slowing down the shift to streaming and, more important, pushing people to other media platforms (YouTube, Spotify, TikTok) where the experience is much smoother and there’s not the sense that you are being manipulated.
That’s the thing most of the streaming services seem to completely ignore, that while it’s great for them to collect all sorts of data and to keep consumers on the platform for as long as possible and to plot out their “user journey” through your site, it’s not a particularly good experience for the consumer.
So, sorry, Pete and company. Offering me a combination plate of a lot of what I already have, but not including many of my favorites, with no promise of making access to it any easier, is just not something I’m finding particularly appetizing. Tom Brady or not.
Until next time…