DirecTV launches MySports streaming service to pounce on Venu’s demise

The news: DirecTV is launching a multichannel sports streaming service called MySports, aiming to fill the void left by Venu Sports’ demise.

• MySports will offer access to all the channels that Venu planned to offer, including ESPN and TNT, plus the additional networks like NFL Network and NBA TV.
• Currently in a public beta, subscriptions start at $69.99 monthly, higher than Venu’s proposed $42.99 launch price—though DirecTV is offering an introductory discount of $49.99 for the first three months.

The post-Venu world: Venu Sports was set to significantly disrupt streaming, posing a threat to both linear TV providers and streamers with major sports rights packages like YouTube TV. With that threat now quashed, the sports streaming market is once again a jump ball.

• MySports represents the first effort to seize on the opportunity left by Venu’s collapse. DirecTV had a role in its cancellation, having filed an antitrust complaint alongside EchoStar seeking to block Disney’s plan to merge with Fubo. That deal would have ended Fubo's prior attempt to block Venu’s launch. One day later, Venu folded.
• DirecTV is able to offer so many channels via its various deals with broadcasters. It inked a new deal with Disney after a carriage fee battle in the fall and recently signed another with Warner Bros. Discovery.
• The question remains whether consumers will have an appetite for the streaming service at its current cost. MySports’ $69.99 is significantly more expensive than Venu’s planned launch price but still cheaper than competing pay TV and sports services like YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and Fubo—though its packages that contain specialty sports like the SEC eclipse competitors’ pricing.

Our take: MySports is an interesting glimpse at how pay TV providers and streaming services will attempt to capitalize on sports now that Venu is no longer a threat.

Beyond sports, it reveals how pay TV companies like DirecTV, who have seen their market power diminish greatly during streaming’s rise, are attempting to reposition themselves. DirecTV said MySports was the first of many genre-based offerings it plans to launch, hinting at more streaming products to come.

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