Max won’t charge for sports add-on, but makes it ad-free tier exclusive
Max won’t charge for sports add-on, but makes it ad-free tier exclusive
Warner Bros. Discovery is also moving its CNN Max hub to only its ad-free tiers starting next month.
When Warner Bros. Discovery decided to bring its full suite of domestic sports rights to its flagship streaming service in fall 2023, it was a boon for cord-cutting sports fans. That NBA, NHL, and MLB games that otherwise would air on TBS and TNT would be available without a cable, satellite, or live TV streaming subscription, and WBD has only added sports rights in the past year and a half — although the company did lose their NBA rights beginning next season. At the time, the plan was to make the B/R Sports Add-On an additional charge beginning in February 2024, but that never happened, and now, WBD says it never will… unless you are on an ad-supported plan.
Key Details:
- Max will not charge extra for its sports package, but ad-supported subscribers will have to upgrade.
- The CNN Max hub will also move to only ad-free tiers next month.
- Cord-cutters will need to pay at least $17 to retain access to Max’s live sports and news content.
On Wednesday, Max announced that it would not pursue a path that would charge subscribers to access the sports content that they have gotten used to having access to over the past year and a half. Initially, WBD pushed back the introduction of the $10 monthly fee for the B/R Sports Add-On in January of last year, and as late as last fall, was still actively planning to make it a paid add-on. However, the company has decided that wasn’t the best move. Instead, the package will be included in the top two subscription tiers, both of which are ad-free.
“Over the last year plus, we had the opportunity to assess how users engage with sports and news on Max, and we’ve been actively involved in exploring ways to evolve the sports distribution ecosystem in the U.S. We believe that the best place for that content for now is within the Standard and Premium tiers,” WBD’s CEO and president of global streaming JB Perrette said. “This update ensures that subscribers can continue to enjoy that coveted access within Max, while also enabling ongoing investment in our premium sports and news portfolio.”
While Perrette did use the term “for now” in his statement, that means that Max subscribers who are signed up for the $17 monthly ad-free Premium plan and the $21 per month Ultimate ad-free plan will have access to the over 1,700 live sporting events from across the company’s portfolio at no extra cost. Customers who have been used to getting the games and matches for free on the $10 per month ad-supported Standard plan will have to upgrade in order to retain that access.
That is not the only subscription change that WBD announced on Wednesday. Beginning on March 30, the CNN Max content of live and on-demand news programming from CNN would only be available on the ad-free levels. This means that customers on the Basic with Ads tier will lose access to both live news and sports if they do not upgrade.
The around-the-clock CNN Max hub launched just a few weeks before the B/R Sports Add-On and offers a mix of original, streaming-exclusive programming, live breaking news, some of the cable channel’s flagship shows, on-demand titles, and more.
For customers who want to keep access to both of these unique viewing options, the minimum that they will need to pay is $17 per month, which is still less than what WBD had originally planned to charge for a subscription and the B/R Sports Add-On.
Since the introduction of the Max sports package, WBD has beefed up its sports rights, despite losing out on long-time cornerstone NBA rights beginning in the fall of 2025. The Bleacher Report Sports Add-On offers coverage of NBA, MLB, NHL, college football, college basketball, NASCAR, French Open tennis, United States national team soccer, Premier Cycling, and more.
HBO Max
HBO Max is a subscription video streaming service that gives access to the full HBO library and exclusive Max Originals. There are hubs for content from TLC, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, TCM, Cartoon Network, Travel Channel, ID, and more. Watch hit series like “The Last of Us,” “House of the Dragon,” “Succession,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and more. Within HBO Max, B/R Sports allows users to watch live NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, and NASCAR events.