Breaking: Warner Bros. Discovery to Announce Max Live Sports Streaming Plans ‘Soon’
One of the most exciting prospects for cord-cutters around Warner Bros. Discovery’s transition of HBO Max into Max was that the new subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platform would be a streaming home for all of the media conglomerate’s various properties. While the streamer has already integrated a substantial amount of the lifestyle programming that was previously only available via discovery+, as of now, Max has not taken advantage of the extensive sports rights that WBD holds in the United States.
However, during Thursday’s earnings call with analysts and investors, the company’s CEO David Zaslav confirmed that WBD was quickly moving forward with plans to bring sports to the service.
“We have good deals here in the U.S. and around the world that provide real value to us,” Zaslav said. “One of the elements of those deals is that we own the digital rights to our sports. So we have the ability, for no incremental cost, to put that content on our platforms.”
This is not a new revelation for Zaslav and WBD. This has been a cornerstone of the company’s discussions about the future of their streaming endeavors for months, and ahead of May’s Max launch, WBD chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said that news and sports would be essential to the full range of content that the service was looking to provide to consumers.
On Thursday, Zaslav revealed that while the company had focused primarily on executing a smooth launch of Max, it was beginning to turn its attention to bringing domestic sports to the streamer.
“We’ve been working this summer very hard. No. 1, we wanted to get this platform right. We wanted to do no harm,” he said speaking of Max. “We still have a lot of work to do. We’re early on, but news and sports are important, they’re differentiators, they’re compelling, and they make these platforms come alive. If you’re on an SVOD platform and something [is] going on in the world and you could see it [on] that platform, [it] makes that platform really alive. So you will hear from us on that soon.”
Through its Turner Networks — TBS and TNT — Warner Bros. Discovery holds sports rights for MLB, NBA, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, NHL, U.S. Men’s and Women’s Soccer, and All-Elite Wrestling. In addition, the company owns CNN which quickly abandoned its own streaming service CNN+ after a month last year, but has since seen some of its library shows and films migrate to Max.
With the launch of Max now in the rearview mirror, it appears that Zaslav and company are now moving full-steam ahead on bringing even more of the company’s content under the same streaming umbrella.
Max
Max is a subscription video streaming service that gives access to the full HBO library, along with 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. Thanks to the B/R Sports add-on, users can watch NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, and NASCAR events.