Yet another sports-centric streaming service is on the way, one borne in significant part from a major corporate restructuring.
In the wake of the forthcoming split of TNT Sports parent company Warner Bros. Discovery into two separate entities, current WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said a new app based around the TNT Sports portfolio is now actively in development.
“We’re working on creating our own TNT Sports app, which is going to be available as a streaming product, but importantly as a bundle option—internally with Discovery+, not so internally anymore with HBO Max, but also open to other partners in the industry,” Wiedenfels said this week at a Bank of America conference. “That’s going to be a great additional monetization opportunity.”
Wiedenfels will be leading Discovery Global, the company that will contain the bulk of WBD’s sports and linear TV holdings after the split. Warner Bros., to be led by current WBD president and CEO David Zaslav, will be a separate company with WBD’s film, TV, and other entertainment properties. The separation is on track for completion in mid-2026, something also serving as a target to debut the sports streaming product.
TNT Sports content is currently available through HBO Max, but that service will reside with Warner Bros. after the split.
“As part of the separation, we decided that sports here in the U.S. are going to come off of HBO Max, and that means that we need to have our own streaming home,” Wiedenfels said. “[TNT Sports chair] Luis [Silberwasser] and the team are driving that hard right now, and it’s going to take a little longer than a matter of weeks, but we’ll hopefully have that ready right around the time of our separation.”
Market Dynamics
The news of the forthcoming TNT streaming product, while not unexpected, also closely follows the debuts last month of ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer service and Fox One.
Those two networks, along with WBD, were the three partners in the ill-fated Venu Sports. ESPN and Fox are already working together in a streaming bundle that resurrects much of the prior Venu concept, and it will bear close watching whether TNT Sports realigns with those companies in its new corporate structure.
TNT Sports has been in the midst of remaking its sports rights portfolio, parting ways with live rights to the NBA beginning this fall, but acquiring many others, including in college football and tennis, and more recently, baseball’s Savannah Bananas.
Discovery Global will carry much of the exposure to the ongoing decline of linear television compared to Warner Bros., as well as much of WBD’s existing debt of more than $37 billion. Also freed from larger corporate pressures, that entity, and TNT Sports more specifically, will have greater latitude to pursue other potential opportunities.
“Sports is a core part of our strategy,” Wiedenfels said. “We’re always going to continue looking at everything that comes to the market. And in many cases, you’re going to see us say no, because you have to be incredibly disciplined in that space. But I think as Luis and the team have shown, you can be very successful with that strategy. I love the portfolio as it stands right now. And if there are rights that become available as everybody is kind of reshuffling their strategies, we’ll be there and we’ll take a look.”
