The battle for supremacy in sports-centric skinny bundles is escalating quickly as satellite TV carrier DirecTV is introducing a sports package that includes all of what was previously attempted with Venu Sports, plus many more channels.
The company unveiled its “MySports” streaming package Tuesday, bringing together content from prior Venu Sports partners ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, as well as league-owned channels such as the NFL Network and MLB Network. Other digital services such as ESPN+ will eventually be added to the package.
More than 40 sports and broadcast channels will be part of the MySports package. It will be available initially in 24 U.S. metro areas, including top markets such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and cost $69.99 per month. A debut promotion drops $20 from the cost for each of the first three months.
Those figures are dramatically less than the standard fee of more than $100 per month for an entry-level DirecTV package with a broad array of sports channels and streaming capabilities—but more than the $42.99 per month eyed for the now-shuttered Venu Sports.
“This is the first of several genre-based options we plan to launch over the coming months on our path towards a brighter TV future for consumers,” DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow said in a statement.
The skinny bundle race is one of several strategies carriers and programmers are attempting to address accelerating cord-cutting across the pay-TV landscape. Other efforts are more direct-to-consumer options, such as what ESPN is now developing with its “Flagship” product.
Several major sports programmers, including CBS and Amazon, remain notable omissions from this new MySports package, as they were in Venu Sports.
Broader Landscape
DirecTV’s high-profile announcement arrived just days after Venu Sports announced plans to discontinue before even reaching the market, though former rival Fubo Inc. now plans to revive the essence of that controversial service.
DirecTV, meanwhile, has been in the throes of its own change in recent months. An attempt at a large-scale merger with satellite TV rival Dish Network quickly unraveled, in part due to complications from the latter’s debt load of nearly $10 million. A separate deal in which private equity giant TPG Inc. will acquire from AT&T the 70% stake in DirecTV it doesn’t already own remains on track.
The carrier has also been in the midst of amending current deals or striking new ones with major programmers to help make initiatives such as MySports. Among them was a major negotiation last summer with ESPN’s parent company Disney, ultimately resolving a bitter, two-week impasse in talks.
