Venu Sports Streaming Service - $42.99/Month

[GregL]

The new sports streaming service from ESPN/FOX/Warner Brothers Discovery was introduced today as Venu Sports. For the low, low price of $42.99/month, you can stream "...the world’s biggest cycling events." If this is the successor to GCN and Max B/R Sports, count me out. Guess it will be back to pirate feeds or VPNs to international sports sites...

Greg

[gone]

That pricing is seriously crazy! Undoubtedly driven mostly by "premier" sports coverage (NFL, NBA, etc) that I personally could care less about watching.

[saab2000]

I don’t hate the idea of paying to stream this stuff but the US feed for the TdF was, at best, mediocre this year. I don’t think I’ll actually pay for Peacock next year. But with the rights to so many events owned by various entities I see this as super fragmented cycling coverage. And I didn’t actually see any mention of cycling in that link.

[GregL]

Originally Posted by saab2000

I don’t hate the idea of paying to stream this stuff but the US feed for the TdF was, at best, mediocre this year. I don’t think I’ll actually pay for Peacock next year. But with the rights to so many events owned by various entities I see this as super fragmented cycling coverage. And I didn’t actually see any mention of cycling in that link.

I agree 100% that cycling coverage in the US is ridiculously fragmented. A few thoughts:

1) The TdF was on Peacock. Venu will likely pick up where GCN/Max left off. Peacock has the US rights to races from ASO (e.g., Paris Roubaix, TdF, Vuelta). Venu will likely have the US rights to multiple classics/monuments and the Giro. Flo Sports has US rights to Flanders Classics races and the UCI World Championships.

2) Cycling was mentioned in the linked article as well as several others I read.

Greg

[kytyree]

The articles make me think that $42.99 will go up quickly. They're saying if you get in early they'll lock you in at that price for 12 months.

Of course how popular it is will have a lot to do with any price changes after launch.

I can only see it right now for someone who only watches the big US team sports and hardly anything else on network/cable TV. And that customer would need to be into all of the big US sports. IE getting all of the MLB games is cheaper going through MLB right now.

It will be a shame if that's the only non-vpn way to get the cycling coverage now on Max, because this package isn't attractive to me otherwise.

[glepore]

I'm wondering where that's going to leave those of us that have Disney and Hulu, are we losing ESPN without another 45 bucks a month? I'm presuming there will be some discount, as I already get Fox and ESPN (I watch a fair amt of Indycar-Fox next year- and F1) as part of Hulu. If they take it away and I have to buy it back, I'm out. The downside to vpn is that its great on a laptop or phone but no way to do it on a smart tv that I know of. Yeah, you can cast/airdrop whatever but that's full of glitch.

I want my cord back, lol.

[hellvetica]

This looks good. We’re paying extra to watch MLB games through our ISP now and they charge more than this.

[Mark McM]

It looks like the Venu Sports streaming service may not be launching anytime soon. A judge has blocked the launching of Venu Sports in response to a request for an injunction by Fubo Sports, who is suing Warner Discovery for an anti-competitive restraint of trade:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/16/media...ked/index.html