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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 with about 90 top channels that start at $79.99 per month. This plan includes local channels, 19 of the top 35 cable channels, and regional sports networks (RSNs). In total, you should expect to pay about $94.99 per month, after adding in their RSN Fee. Fubo was previously known as “fuboTV.”

The streaming service does not carry channels from WarnerMedia-owned (CNN, TBS, and TNT), A+E (A&E, History Channel, and Lifetime), and AMC Networks (AMC, BBC America, and WE tv). So, in our experience, if you are looking to watch the NBA, which heavily plays on TBS and TNT, you may want to look at another live TV streaming provider.

But for other sports fans, especially those who want to stream local sports, Fubo is a great option in our opinion. They recently announced adding Bally Sports RSNs to their channel lineup and it is the least expensive option to get RSNs in many markets like Altitude, AT&T Sports, Fox Sports, Marquee, MSG, NBC Sports, and NESN. (Take a look at the full list of Fubo’s sports channels.)

Fubo also includes MLB Network, NBA TV, NFL Network, NFL RedZone , NHL Network, and beIN Sports (which is not available on most services). You can add Fox Soccer Plus as part of the International Sports Plus add-on for $7/month.

You can add the Fubo Extra ($8) to add ~38 channels including GSN.

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What’s the Status of Venu Until October 2025?

Venu is stuck on the sidelines unless and until the preliminary injunction against it is lifted.

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 is the planned live TV streaming service offering sports from ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, and truTV. Programming from ESPN+ and on-demand content will also be available. Users will be able to watch NFL, NBA, MLB, and NCAA games. Subscribers can bundle the product with Disney+, Hulu, or Max. Venu’s launch is on hold thanks to a preliminary injunction.


David covers the biggest news stories, live events, premieres, and informational pieces for The Streamable. Before joining TS, he wrote extensively for Screen Rant and has years of experience writing about the entertainment and streaming industries. He's a Broncos fan, streams on his Toshiba Fire TV, and his favorites include "Andor," "Rings of Power," and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

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