U.S. Reps Raise Concerns That Disney, Fox, WBD Sports Streaming Venture Will Be Anticompetitive
16.04.2024 - 20:31
/ variety.com
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The Disney/ESPN, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery sports-streaming joint venture has drawn congressional scrutiny.
In a letter sent Wednesday (April 16) to the CEOs of the three companies, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D.-NY), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D.-Texas) requested answers about the competitive implications of the proposed sports streaming JV.
“As programmers, your companies exert tremendous influence over pricing across the live sports TV ecosystem,” Nadler and Castro wrote in the letter to Disney’s Bob Iger, Fox’s Lachlan Murdoch and Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav. The three companies’ joint venture, the letter continued, “raises questions about how this new offering would affect access, competition and choice in the sports streaming market.
Without more complete information about the pricing, intent, and organization of this new venture, we are concerned that this consolidation will result in higher prices for consumers and less fair licensing terms for upstream sports leagues and downstream video distributors.” The reps requested answers by April 30. Among their list of 19 questions: “Will the Joint Venture Partners implement provisions to prevent anticompetitive sharing of pricing or other competitively sensitive information among each other?” Reps for Disney, Fox and WBD did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Disney, Fox and WBD unveiled their partnership in February and said they expected to debut their sports-streaming bundle in the fall of 2024.
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