NBC Chairman Calls Flailing Sports Streamer Venu an ‘Incomplete Service’

NBCUniversal Media Group chairman Mark Lazarus was coy about the number of Peacock subscribers added during the Summer Olympics when asked about it Tuesday at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit in New York. When it came to the embattled Venu Sports streaming joint venture from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, Lazarus was less guarded.

“Why won’t you offer that bundle to others?” Lazarus told FOS editor in chief Dan Roberts. “Why can’t Comcast or Charter or Fubo, in this case, buy that bundle? To me, as a consumer, it’s sort of an incomplete service in that it doesn’t have all sports. It has three companies’ sports, but that leaves out us, and Paramount, and Amazon, who have major sports portfolios or growing portfolios.”

Venu was supposed to launch Aug. 23, but a federal judge granted FuboTV—which filed an antitrust lawsuit earlier this year—an injunction that put the joint venture on hold. Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery appealed the judge’s decision, although the future of Venu remains murky. 

“The other part that we worry about is: Is there an informal alliance on bidding on properties, and is that legal?” Lazarus asked rhetorically.

He also detailed his network’s hunt to get the NBA back on NBC for the first time since 2002. This upcoming season will be the last under the current Disney-WBD setup.

“We were always interested in the NBA,” Lazarus said. “Earlier in the year, we expressed our interest in the league and should they get out of their exclusive window [with current rights holders ESPN and TNT Sports], we would love to have a conversation. When they came out of their exclusive window, we talked about it,” Lazarus said. “We love the scope [of the NBA]. We love the cultural relevance of it. We love the differentiated audience. We like what it does for our prime time on NBC. We like what it’s going do for us in building a consistent subscriber base and heavy usage for Peacock.”

Disney, the parent company of ABC and ESPN, NBC, and Amazon will be home to the NBA starting in the 2025–2026 season as part of rights deals worth $77 billion over 11 years. TNT Sports was the odd broadcast partner out and parent company WBD sued the NBA in July, a case that remains pending in New York court. 

“I’m not going to comment on Turner’s strategy,” Lazarus said. “I think they maybe thought that there wasn’t going to be as vibrant a market for the [NBA] as there turned out to be, and maybe they misjudged the timing on their discussions. But I won’t speak to it. I wasn’t in any of their rooms.”