Fubo’s Antitrust Battle with Venu Sports Sets Trial Dates
Fubo’s Antitrust Battle with Venu Sports Sets Trial Dates
Venu’s lawyers were pushing for a much later date, but Judge Margaret Garnett will convene the trial next fall.
The case against Venu Sports now has an official timetable. Fubo has scored another victory — albeit a minor one — in the antitrust case brought against the joint venture streaming service, winning an earlier trial date than representatives for Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery wanted. The trial will begin Oct. 6, 2025, when a jury will convene to determine whether or not Venu violates U.S. antitrust law, determining its fate and potentially that of the entire pay-TV industry.
Key Details:
- The defendants asked for a trial date closer to February 2026.
- Judge Margaret Garnett expects the trial to take about a month to complete.
- Venu is still blocked from being sold to customers by a preliminary injunction.
Judge Margaret Garnett spelled out the timeline of the trial in a pretrial conference on Thursday. Factual discovery will close in March 2025, and expert discovery will conclude next June. Judge Garnett told both parties that they were free to negotiate interim deadlines for themselves, but the trial start date “should be treated as firm.”
Lawyers from Disney, Fox, and WBD wanted to delay matters further and asked for a trial date starting in February 2026. Disney lawyer Antony Ryan tried to argue that in antitrust cases like this one, a trial starting two years after the initial filing of the lawsuit is “a fast schedule.”
Fubo is suing the three companies over Venu, saying that by creating a product that no cable distributor in the market has access to, the media conglomerates had a monopolistic advantage that could fundamentally alter the pay-TV business, with the potential to drive competitors like Fubo and DIRECTV to bankruptcy. Selling a channel package like Venu at a price of $42.99 per month, while forcing distributors to carry less-popular channels alongside the sports networks that will be included in the joint venture, creates a distinctly unfair advantage for the defendants, Fubo argues.
Disney, Fox, and WBD insist the service is both pro-competition and pro-consumer. DIRECTV is lobbying for the ability to sell Venu-sized packages for itself, but Disney is apparently reluctant to go that direction since it still harbors dreams of distributing Venu directly to consumers and bypassing pay-TV middle-men altogether.
Earlier this week, both sides acknowledged that the information Fubo wanted in the discovery phase of the trial would reveal secrets about the process of carriage negotiations that have not been made public in the many decades that pay TV has been available. Once the trial begins, Judge Garnett expects it will take around one month to finish.
Fubo
Fubo is a live TV streaming service offering a robust lineup of approximately 150 premier channels, with plans starting at $63.99 per month. This entry-level package provides access to local broadcast affiliates 18 of the leading 35 cable channels channels, and valuable regional sports networks (RSNs).
What’s the Status of Venu Until October 2025?
Venu is still blocked by the preliminary injunction that Judge Garnett issued in August. The defendants planned to begin selling Venu to the public on Aug. 23, but the court’s ruling prevents that from happening unless they win an appeal against the decision.
Disney, Fox, and WBD have requested an expedited appeal process which Fubo has not objected to, suggesting that perhaps it is just as confident about the outcome of the appeal as it was in asking for the injunction in the first place.
If the defendants win their appeal, they could begin selling Venu as early as January, in time for the NFL playoffs. If they lose and the injunction remains in place, they will be restricted from trying to sell Venu at least until the trial ends. If they lose the trial too, Venu will officially end up on the scrap heap.
Venu Sports
Venu Sports was the planned live TV streaming service that would offer sports from ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, and truTV. Programming from ESPN+ and on-demand content would also be available, as would broadcasts of NFL, NBA, MLB, and NCAA games. However, in January 2025, after Fubo and Hulu + Live TV officially merged, Venu’s launch was put on hold thanks to a preliminary injunction. It was only a few days later that the joint venture was officially shut down for good.