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Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery announced on Tuesday that they would join together and sell access to all of the sports they televise through a new streaming service<\/a>. It will be available this fall, but many other details, like price or who would run the service, are not yet known.<\/p>\n The subtext of the agreement \u2014 and of most decisions media companies make \u2014 is that the cable bundle is collapsing. A decade ago, about 100 million homes in the United States subscribed to a package of cable or satellite television channels. Today, that number is around 70 million, and dropping.<\/p>\n Media companies know that young adults no longer sign up for cable, and that their best customers are also their oldest. They know people no longer think of \u201ctelevision,\u201d but are instead used to \u201ccontent\u201d that can be watched on a television, a phone or some other device.<\/p>\n Cable\u2019s days seem numbered but right now it is still a profitable business \u2014 streaming, for most companies, is not \u2014 and the biggest audiences for shows, especially sports, still exist on traditional television. So how do media companies get from where they are today to where they are going to be?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With, they hope, deals like the one announced this week.<\/p>\n Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have bundled 14 of their channels that show sports \u2014 the full list includes ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNews, Fox, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS and truTV \u2014 and the ESPN+ streaming service, and will sell them as a single package.<\/p>\n That was not announced. But you can expect it to cost more than the $15 or so a month that most streaming companies charge, and less than the $100 or so it costs each month to subscribe to a pay television package. Ads will be shown on the new service.<\/p>\n Both, sort of. It is definitely a streaming service that you will be able to subscribe to and watch on a variety of devices. But rather than a menu of different shows to watch on demand, there will be channels that you can watch live, much like cable customers do.<\/p>\n As a result, this means subscribers to the service will also be able to watch the non-sports shows these channels televise, like \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d and \u201cThe Bachelor.\u201d<\/p>\n The contracts between networks and leagues are usually specific about where games can be shown. Because of a fear of a smaller audience, most leagues have been hesitant about allowing too many games to move off broadcast and cable channels and shift fully to streaming. But this new service is structured in such a way that it offers everything on the included channels: sports and non-sports content alike. That makes it more like already existing cable bundles and its means the companies did not need to secure permission from the leagues to show the games on the service.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Nope. Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have paid for the right to show a ton of sports, but they don\u2019t own the rights to everything.<\/p>\n NBC, CBS, Amazon and other smaller players are not a part of this agreement. So if you want to watch the sports they have the rights to \u2014 which include a lot of National Football League, golf majors and the PGA Tour, the men\u2019s college basketball tournament, the Olympics and the English Premier League, among others \u2014 you will still have to subscribe to those channels.<\/p>\n Well, you subscribe to a pay television package, or in the case of Amazon, Amazon Prime. You can get what is shown on CBS and NBC with a cheap digital antenna<\/a>, but if you want the games on USA or the CBS Sports Network, you\u2019ll have to get a pay television package. For any games exclusively on NBC\u2019s Peacock streaming service (like this season\u2019s N.F.L. playoff game<\/a> between Kansas City and Miami) or CBS\u2019s Paramount+ streaming service, you\u2019ll have to subscribe to those.<\/p>\n Yes.<\/p>\n Intense sports fans may not want to. But this service takes many sports that were available on cable, and sells them another way. If you care about all sports, or about non-sports channels like the Food Network or Nickelodeon, it probably isn\u2019t for you.<\/p>\n But if you paid the one-time cost for a digital antenna, and then bought this package, you could watch a large percentage of all sports shown on television for a price that is likely much cheaper than a cable subscription.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It could also be worthwhile if you are a fan of only a few sports. Do you like the National Basketball Association? You can get 100 percent of the nationally televised game through this package. Like a smaller college sport, like volleyball? You can get most of it through this package.<\/p>\n It probably isn\u2019t. Right now, your options are to pay for a television package (and a handful of streaming services) to watch everything, get a digital antenna and watch the N.F.L. and a few other big events on traditional television, or not watch sports.<\/p>\n One day, you might be able to pay for individual games \u00e0 la carte, or some service might bundle all of sports together and somehow offer it for a lower price than a cable subscription. This package may serve as a bridge toward that future for some sports fans.<\/p>\n Blame the companies for not having a name. They\u2019re just calling it a \u201cjoint venture.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nHow does it work?<\/h2>\n
How much will it cost?<\/h2>\n
Is this a streaming service or a cable-like bundle of channels?<\/h2>\n
What\u2019s with all the content that\u2019s not sports?<\/h2>\n
Is this the only service I need to watch all the sports I want?<\/h2>\n
So how do I get all the sports?<\/h2>\n
Will the Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery channels still be part of normal cable or satellite packages?<\/h2>\n
If I need to subscribe to cable to get sports on CBS and NBC channels, and Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery channels will be there too, why bother with this new service?<\/h2>\n
This doesn\u2019t sound like a perfect solution.<\/h2>\n
Can you please stop calling it a package?<\/h2>\n