Paramount CEO Sees Problems with New JV Sports Streamer; Nexstar Execs More Optimistic
Officials from Paramount and Nexstar struck different tones about the sports streaming platform from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery.
As big media companies are turning in their quarterly earnings reports for the final months of 2023, Wall Street analysts are getting the chance to ask their opinions of the joint venture sports streaming service from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Executives from Paramount Global and Nexstar both spoke with analysts on Wednesday about their fourth quarter 2023 earnings and provided very different perspectives on the presumably forthcoming JV streamer.
- Paramount CEO Bob Bakish said the streaming service only has “half the NFL,” and virtually no soccer or golf rights.
- Nexstar president Michael Biard struck a more supportive tone but said his company had more questions than answers about the service.
- Bakish could be angling to get CBS and its sports rights added to the streaming platform.
Paramount CEO Bob Bakish did not assume the defiant stance taken by Fubo, which feels so threatened by the JV streamer that it has filed a lawsuit to try to stop the platform from ever hitting the market. But he did have plenty of questions about the service and noted that its sports inventory, while impressive, was far from complete without Paramount’s lineup.
“For a true sports fan, this product only has a subset of sports,” Bakish said. “It’s missing half the NFL, a lot of college, has virtually no soccer or golf, et cetera. So look, that’s hard to believe that’s ideal, especially at the price points that have been speculated.”
Bakish has a point about the streamer’s NFL rights, as it is missing a big chunk of games that air on Sunday afternoons thanks to its lack of CBS. But the JV platform would encompass all live sports on ESPN+ currently, so the claim that it will have “virtually no soccer or golf” is simply incorrect. PGA TOUR LIVE on ESPN+ offers the most comprehensive coverage of PGA golf tournaments available anywhere, with multiple feeds that allow viewers to find the best action on the course.
From a soccer standpoint, ESPN+ carries Bundesliga, LaLiga, Copa Del Rey, the Carabao Cup, the European Football League, the Women’s FA Cup, Emirates FA Cup, and more. It also gets some matches from the National Women's Soccer League, and just this week also signed a deal with the United Soccer League. Fox and FS1 carry over 30 MLS matches every season, as well as coverage of the FIFA World Cup every four years. TNT and Max have rights to both the United States Men's and Women's Soccer Team matches as well.
Nexstar understandably takes a somewhat different view on the JV streamer. Company president Michael Biard pointed out that Nexstar will be compensated for all the ABC and Fox affiliates that end up on the streamer, and said that Disney, Fox, and WBD were avoiding tactics that helped to undermine revenues from their linear channels by making them available directly to the consumer. But he cautioned that neither Nexstar nor anyone else has all the facts about the sports streamer just yet.
“Since the product is focused on cord-nevers, we would welcome the opportunity to make Nexstar’s local programming available to a new audience,” Biard explained. “All that said, to date, we have more questions than answers about the proposed product, including assurance that will actually launch. We know launching a new streaming startup will be challenging, including potential regulatory hurdles, lawsuits, and other complicating factors surrounding the JV. So we’ll have to see how this all plays out.”
Does Paramount Want In on the JV Streamer?
Bakish’s point that the JV streaming service is missing a large swath of NFL games is undeniably true. CBS splits the overall package of Sunday afternoon NFL games with Fox, and those games would make for a meaningful addition to the streamer if Paramount and CBS were brought on board.
Joining the streaming service would undeniably bring new revenue to Paramount, which is in desperate need of a cash influx at this point. It owes the NFL $2 billion per season for the rights package it holds, and with the company’s linear revenues falling — and streaming revenues not increasing fast enough to make up the difference — getting a cut of the JV streamer would be an undoubted boon for Paramount.
On the other hand, Paramount may lose some of the intra-platform viewing it’s seeing from keeping its sports rights to itself on Paramount+. Bakish referenced a statistic in the earnings call that 90% of the people who come to Paramount+ to watch sports spend 90% of their time on the service streaming something other than sports. With that kind of ability to draw fans in and keep them engaged with non-sports content, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Paramount decline to join with the JV streamer.
Don’t be surprised if Paramount joins other bundles in the future; it’s recently had contact with Comcast about a team-up of Paramount+ and Peacock for example. Paramount executives aren’t as cautiously optimistic about the JV sports streamer from Disney, Fox and WBD as Nexstar representatives are, but neither company stands in outright opposition to the platform yet.
Paramount Plus
Paramount+ is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 40,000+ TV show episodes from BET, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. and more. The lineup includes “1883,” “Tulsa King,” “Star Trek: Discovery,” Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and “PAW Patrol.” Subscribers can watch the NFL, college football, The Masters, college basketball, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa, Serie A, and NWSL. The service also offers the option to watch your live CBS affiliate. The upgraded ad-free package includes premium movies and shows from Showtime.