Would You Pay $50 per Month for New Disney, Fox, WBD Sports Streamer? Is It the Best Sports Streaming Option?

One of the first reactions on social media to the new sports streaming service from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery when it was announced was sports fans ruefully speculating on the service’s cost. Various estimates have emerged on how high the streamer will be priced, and Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch weighed in Monday at the 2024 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference, saying that viewers can expect the monthly subscription fee to be in the “higher range of estimates.”

• Most experts, including those at The Streamable predicted the new streamer would cost between $40 and $50 per month.
• Murdoch believes the streamer can attract 5 million customers in five years at that price.
• Despite the high cost the streamer will carry just over half of all live sports in the United States.

The Streamable's experts have estimated that fans can expect to pay between $40 and $50 per month for the new joint venture streamer. Our sights have been set closer to the $50 figure ever since it was confirmed that the streamer will offer full livestreams of every channel involved, including channels like ABC, Fox, and TNT that carry non-sports content as well.

Despite the presumed high cost of the streamer, Murdoch believes that there’s a large addressable market for it. During his remarks, he also indicated he thought the streamer would attract 5 million customers in five years, and had a total addressable market of 50 to 60 million viewers who identified as cord-cord cutters and cord-nevers — people who have never subscribed to a pay-TV service.

“That’s a huge market. It’s half of the households in this country,” he said. “And we know sports is the No. 1 driver of TV viewing. … Within that 50 million or 60 million, there is, we believe, a very high percentage who will be open to taking this new package.”

How Will JV Streamer’s Cost and Offerings Compare to DIRECTV STREAM, YouTube TV, Others?

There’s no denying that $50 per month for a new sports streaming service will likely be seen as expensive by consumers, especially when it only has around 55% of all sports rights in the United States. But when examining the other virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) — also known as live TV streaming services — like DIRECTV STREAM, Sling TV, and YouTube TV currently available, it’s apparent that the JV streamer will come in at a less expensive price compared to its content offerings than many of them. The three companies involved in the JV service have confirmed it will carry ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNEWS, ABC, Fox, FS1, Fox Sports 2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS, truTV, as well as ESPN+.

Consider Sling TV, for example. Its base price is $40 per month, cheaper than the $50 we think that the JV streamer will cost. But Sling customers don’t get access to channels like SEC Network or ESPNU in their base plans; those are housed in the Sports Extra add-on pack, which costs another $11 per month on top of a $40 base plan. That alone would make Sling slightly more expensive than the JV streamer, and it’s also worth noting that most Sling customers don’t get access to ABC or Fox, whereas the JV streamer will reportedly carry those channels in all markets.

Bigger services like DIRECTV STREAM and YouTube TV do carry local channels in nearly all areas, but they both cost at least $20 more per month than the JV streaming service is predicted to cost. Even these streamers don’t have some sports channels that the Disney, Fox, and WBD streamer will have in their base plans; DIRECTV STREAM customers have to upgrade to the Choice plan ($108.99 per month) to get ACC Network and other college sports channels, and YouTube TV does not offer ESPNEWS at all.

It’s hard to predict how much of a challenge not offering a wide range of entertainment channels will be for the JV sports streamer. The reason these live TV services end up charging much more than $50 per month for their platforms is because they carry a wide range of entertainment networks in their lineups, which the JV streamer will not. Murdoch may be correct in his declaration that there are as many as 60 million cord-cutter and cord-never households in the United States, but how many of these households are such rabid sports fans that they’ll be willing to leave top entertainment channels behind to get the sports-focused JV streamer is an open question.

It’s seeming more and more likely that fans who want to snag the JV sports streamer from Disney, Fox, and WBD will want to set aside $50 per month in their budget for it. The service will still cost considerably less than most live TV streaming platforms and will offer a wide range of live sports from the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, top college sporting events, and much more. It won’t offer much in the way of entertainment, so it will be fascinating to see if audiences react the way Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch predicts.