Is $59 to Stream NFL, Other Major Sports Worth It? Does Combo of Venu Sports, Paramount+, Peacock Make Sense?

As fall approaches, Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery are slowly releasing more details about their forthcoming joint venture streaming platform Venu Sports. The service is essentially a slimmed-down live TV streaming service that will offer 14 channels, including ABC, ESPN, Fox, FS1, TNT, and more. It will carry an impressive selection of major sports rights in the United States, and as announced on Thursday, it will cost $42.99 after a seven-day free trial. However, the service won’t every sport, so I’ll dive into how many other platforms you’ll have to stack on top of Venu to get your sports fix this year, and if it’s really a better all-around value than a live TV service with more options like Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV STREAM, or YouTube TV.

Key Details:

• Fans will have to add Paramount+ and Peacock to Venu to get all locally available NFL action on Sundays.
• Even adding Prime Video to the stack is cheaper than most live TV streaming options.
• Venu will have fewer features than other platforms to start, and stacking will force customers to track several bills.

Venu will carry all of the live sports offered on linear channels owned by Disney, Fox, and WBD. It will distribute more than half of the live sports games available on TV in the U.S., including Fox’s Sunday afternoon NFL package and “Monday Night Football” on ESPN. In 2024, it will also carry all national NBA and NHL games appearing on ESPN and TNT, as well as any MLB playoff games on ESPN, Fox, and TBS.

However, there are still big gaps in the sports landscape that it won’t cover. CBS’s Sunday afternoon NFL package is not included, nor is “Sunday Night Football” on NBC, “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video, or Christmas Day games on Netflix. The Streamable broke down how much it would cost to stream every locally available game of the NFL season using Venu and these services, and came up with a total price of over $400 — though of course, at the time we had to guess on the price of Venu.

What Will it Cost to Stack Venu With Other Sports Streamers?

If you want to round out your sports viewing this fall and watch events found on outlets other than Venu, you do have options. Stacking Paramount+ and Peacock so that you can watch all NFL games on a Sunday — both will cost $7.99 per month — will cost you $58.97 per month. This will also get you a selection of soccer, including the UEFA Champions League from Paramount+, as well as Big Ten football and basketball, Big East basketball, Notre Dame football, and much more on Peacock. The NBCUniversal streamer will also take over some NBA broadcasting duties starting in the fall of 2025.

Adding Prime Video to the mix will bring the monthly price up to $67.96, but that will grant you access to all “TNF” games, the Black Friday games, and the exclusive NFL playoff game that the streamer will offer come January. Starting in 2025, Prime Video will take over the rights to stream TNT’s package of NBA games, so it will be an important addition to the stack for basketball fans next year.

Even adding Netflix to the group keeps the monthly price under $75. Ad-supported Netflix costs $6.99 per month, and throwing it in the mix allows viewers to have every NFL game in 2024-25, in addition to a wide array of other sports options for a total of $74.95 including Netflix, Venu, Paramount+, Peacock, Prime Video.

Of course, even cable, satellite, and live-streaming customers would need to pay extra — outside of any appropriate bundles — to watch the games on Prime Video and Netflix.

Is Stacking Streamers Better Than Cable, Live TV Streaming?

From a price perspective, the streaming stacks listed above all come in significantly cheaper than all live TV streaming plans. The sports-centric streaming service Fubo — which is suing to try to stop Venu from ever coming out — is more than $30 more per month than the corresponding stack, and it doesn’t carry TNT, TBS, or truTV. Even streamers like DIRECTV STREAM ($79.99 per month at the cheapest) and YouTube TV ($72.99) are considerably more per month.

One major benefit for live streamers when it comes to appealing to sports fans looking to stream as much content as they can is the fact that with platforms like Hulu + Live TV, all of the channels are in one place. By stacking Venu, Paramount+, and Peacock, you would need to exit each streamer in order to watch a game on another, rather than just changing channels.

But what about features? WBD CEO David Zaslav said that Venu Sports will be a “contemporary product,” so it will likely have a decent amount of features that fans often clamor for. The Streamable has predicted that Venu will offer a multiview function, but even if it is fully customizable — which YouTube TV’s is not — it won’t allow viewers to include games from Paramount+ or Peacock, creating another user experience disadvantage.

Content-wise, the advantages of a live TV streamer versus stacking Venu with subscription services really depend on personal taste. Venu won’t offer popular entertainment networks like AMC, Nickelodeon, FX, USA Network, or others, but adding Peacock, Paramount+, and other services to the lineup will provide a wide range of shows and movies to pick from. As The Streamable was the first to report, all of the channels included as a part of Venu Sports will be around-the-clock, even when they aren’t airing sports. So there will be non-sports, entertainment programming available on ABC, Fox, TBS, TNT, and truTV.

There is also the matter of convenience, which could help tip the scales in favor of larger live TV services for some. Signing up for a DIRECTV STREAM or a Fubo allows you to keep your sports and entertainment costs on one bill each month. By choosing Venu and combining it with other services, customers will have to keep track of multiple bills every month.

At a starting price of $42.99 per month, Venu can make it meaningfully less expensive to watch your favorite live sports as opposed to cable or live TV streaming. But there will be tradeoffs for any customers who do decide to go that route, and personal taste will be as big a deciding factor as any when viewers have the choice to switch to Venu after its release this fall.