Fubo TV hits Disney, Fox, WBD with antitrust suit over proposed sports streamer
Sports streamer Fubo TV has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Disney, Fox, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) and their affiliates alleging that the companies’ planned sports streaming joint venture will limit competition and inflate prices for consumers.
David Gandler
In its complaint, filed on Tuesday, Fubo TV claimed the three companies have engaged in a “long-running pattern of stymying Fubo’s sports-first streaming service by engaging in anti-competitive practices.”
Specifically, Fubo said tactics used by the companies to stifle competition include “unfair bundling” – whereby Fubo is forced to carry dozens of expensive non-sports channels that its customers don’t want as a condition of licensing sports channels from Disney, Fox and WBD – and charging Fubo content licensing rates that are “as much as 30-50%+ higher” than rates they charge other distributors.
It also alleged that the companies have restricted Fubo from “offering compelling streaming products that consumers would find desirable, despite similar products being offered by other traditional pay TV and streaming services, including the defendants’ own Hulu service.”
The planned JV sports streamer, first announced two weeks ago, is “simply the latest coordinated step in the defendants’ campaign to eliminate competition in the sports-first streaming market and capture this market for themselves,” said Fubo.
The proposed service, scheduled to launch in the fall, will bundle sports content from linear networks such as Disney’s ESPN and ABC, WBD’s TNT, TBS and truTV, Fox’s main network, FS1 and FS2, in addition to ESPN+.
Sports and rights included will include NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, PGA Tour golf, three of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the FIFA World Cup, UFC, Formula 1 and NASCAR. Key details including the monthly and yearly price of the service have not yet been revealed.
Fubo, which launched in the US in 2015, alleged it has “incurred billions of dollars in damages” as a result of the three companies’ anti-competitive practices. In addition to damages, it also wants the court to block the streamer from launching.
Fubo’s lawsuit comes as the Department of Justice prepares to probe the planned streamer, according to a report in Bloomberg.
“By joining together to exclusively reserve the rights to distribute a specialised live sports package, we believe these corporations are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors from entering the market,” said Fubo co-founder and CEO David Gandler.
“This strategy ensures that consumers desiring a dedicated sports channel line-up are left with no alternative but to subscribe to the defendants’ joint venture.”
