The plans are all in place! After months of speculation, Warner Bros. Discovery has at last unveiled its plans for offering live sports on Max. Beginning on Oct. 5, Max will offer every televised sporting event appearing on TNT, TBS, and truTV as part of its new Bleacher Report Sports add-on.
Best yet for fans, live sports will be free on Max all the way until February 2024. At that time, the service will begin charging $9.99 per month for customers to watch the B/R Sports add-on. Still, that leaves sports lovers five months to enjoy NBA basketball, NHL hockey, the MLB playoffs, and all the other sports currently available on the Turner Networks.
But why is WBD giving users so much free access to its sports, especially as company CEO David Zaslav has heretofore followed a philosophy of monetizing his streaming platforms to their absolute limit in order to make them profitable?
One reason the long free sports viewing period on Max makes sense is that users are not accustomed to thinking of the service as a sports streamer. Services like Paramount+ and Peacock have been streaming live sports for years now, but all Max has ever offered are scattered games from the U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Soccer teams. Longtime viewers, especially older customers who aren’t as comfortable with streaming platforms will need time to adjust to the new system.
This long trial period will also help users think of Max as a good value during those five months. Streaming customers prioritize value over price, and a premium streaming platform with prestige content like Max is already starting from a position of strength in that regard. Adding a wide array of live games from top sports leagues in the United States for free will certainly add to the impression that Max is a great value buy.
The timing of the end of this free trial period is not coincidental, either. Max is set to begin charging users to access the B/R add-on in February, just ahead of the start of the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. TNT, TBS, and truTV all carry March Madness games, and WBD is making a shrewd bet that users will be too accustomed to watching their favorite sports on Max by then and too hyped for the tournament to turn back, even though they’ll have to start paying $9.99 per month more to watch.
There are also technical considerations at play. Livestreaming events is a whole different ballgame than making series available to stream on-demand, which Netflix found out all too well earlier this year when it had a disastrous attempt at streaming a reunion episode of “Love is Blind” live. Max has to ensure that technical snafus are as ironed out as possible before asking users to pay for live sports.
Whatever the main reason, fans can rejoice that they’ll have a wide array of big-name sports to watch with their Max subscriptions at no extra cost this fall. The B/R Sports add-on will be available to Max users starting Oct. 5 for the MLB playoffs.
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.