Fox, Warner, and Disney teaming up for unholy sports alliance that… sounds a lot like cable TV

Back in the day, there was a service called “cable television” where you would pay a monthly fee to get access to a bunch of different “TV channels” that covered a wide array of subject matters and parent companies. Rather than having to log onto (and pay for) a different app in order to go from a Warner Bros. thing to a Disney thing, you would just grab what was called a “TV remote” and switch from TBS to ABC. It was a beautiful and expensive, and today’s inescapably massive media companies are doing everything they can to recreate it by steadily raising the prices of their streaming services and then bundling them together as a “deal” that doesn’t necessarily save you any money.

Now it’s happening again in a more aggressive and obvious form, with Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery all teaming up to form a super-powerful alliance of sports streaming. According to The Hollywood Reporter, each company is taking a 1/3 stake in a new service that will offer streams of sports content from ESPN, ABC, Fox, TNT, and TBS, plus whatever other sports stuff these three companies have the rights to, all on a non-exclusive basis—which means they can all still do whatever they want with their sports stuff separately. The new thing, whatever it ends up being called, will be available as a standalone service and as a bundle with Max, ESPN+, and Hulu (surprise, surprise).

What this means for us (“consumers,” in the parlance of a massive business deal like this) is that the NFL, the NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, college football, the FIFA World Cup, UFC, Formula 1, NASCAR, and most of the main tennis events will all be available on one streaming service for one (not yet announced) price. This will also mark the first time any of the stuff Fox has the rights to (some football, baseball, and college sports) will be available on streaming.

This is huge for streaming, since these companies are all working together to seemingly just give “consumers” exactly what they want (everything under one proverbial roof), but, at the same time, this is what cable TV was. Essentially, this is like having the most robust sports package you can get from a cable company, except it’s streaming and all you get is sports—unless you bundle this with Max or Hulu, and you know Warner and Disney are going to be doing whatever they possibly can to convince/force you to do that.

The Hollywood Reporter says this new thing, whatever it’s called and however much it costs, is expected to launch in time for the new NFL season in the fall (sucks to be you, baseball, racing, and March Madness fans).