Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch announced that the sports streaming venture with Disney/ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery is making progress with over 150 engineers on board. The team is dedicated to creating a unique and innovative product for sports fans outside of traditional cable bundles. The venture recently launched internal beta tests and will launch this fall.
In March, Pete Distad, a former Apple and Hulu executive, was appointed to lead the new joint venture. Murdoch praised him as a world-class CEO who is off to a great start. He emphasized on a conference call that Fox remains fully supportive of the traditional cable bundle, which is their largest revenue stream. However, he also highlighted the importance of placing their brands where viewers are, even if it means working with distributors in new ways.
When asked about the new app’s bundling with Fox Corp.’s Tubi platform, Murdoch explained that Tubi is a different product. He suggested that it may make more sense to bundle sports with other subscription video-on-demand services in the future. Regarding the new app, Murdoch teased that it is innovative and specifically tailored for cord-nevers and cord-cutters. It will not be comparable to a tier of live channels but rather a digital-first product.
Murdoch shared that the team is working at full capacity to complete the product, with the user interface being a focus but also significant engineering work involved in content ingestion from various partners to create a seamless product. He assured that the upcoming sports streaming app will be groundbreaking in the country and will provide viewers with an innovative way to access their favorite sports content without having to pay for multiple subscriptions or deal with complicated cable packages.
