Warner Bros Discovery drops plans for separate live sports and news tier on Max in US
Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) is reversing course on its plan to launch a separate tier for live sports and news within its Max streaming service in the US.
JB Perrette
The media company revealed on Wednesday that it would be keeping live sports and news within its standard and premium subscription tiers in the US, as opposed to moving them into a separate tier with an additional cost.
In addition, WBD said that live sports and news programming will no longer be available on Max’s ad-supported tier as of March 30.
The move comes after WBD announced in September 2023 that it would be launching its B/R Sports add-on. The company has now said: “This path will not be pursued for now,” keeping the door open for a potential return to the strategy.
“Over the last year plus, we had the opportunity to assess how users engage with sports and news on Max, and we’ve been actively involved in exploring ways to evolve the sports distribution ecosystem in the US,” said JB Perrette, WBD’s president of global streaming and games.
“We believe the best place for that content for now is within the standard and premium tiers.”
Over the past year there have been significant changes to WBD’s sports offerings, primarily losing the rights to a package of NBA games that its cablenet TNT had held for more than 30 years. WBD and TNT have those rights until the end of this season before they move to Amazon at the start of the 2025/26 season. After losing the rights last year, WBD took a US$9.1bn write-down on the value of its linear TV networks.
WBD was also part of the planned joint venture streamer Venu with Disney and Fox, but the launch of that service was scrapped last month.
Max’s B/R Sports offering currently carries more than 1,700 live games and events annually, including rights to MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA, NASCAR, Roland-Garros tennis and March Madness basketball. Meanwhile, its CNN Max offering features a 24/7 live news feed, on-demand news content and CNN Originals.
