M.G. Siegler • #streaming • Aug 11, 2025

Disney & Fox Bundle to Back Into Venu

But this new "sports bundle" makes a lot more sense than Venu ever did...

A year ago, Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery were gearing up to launch Venu, a streaming bundle of sports offerings from the trio. The idea of a sports bundle has always made sense – after all, it's essentially what the cable television bundle itself is for many consumers. But Venu was sort of a mess from the name on down. So much so, that it never saw the light of day. And yet, it sort of lives on...

In the latest streaming milestone, ESPN and Fox are forming a bundle of their soon-to-launch services, Deadline has learned.

Fox One, which brings together sports, news and entertainment from across Fox’s broadcast and cable channels, and ESPN’s dramatically beefed-up direct-to-consumer offering are both launching on August 21. Fox One is priced at $19.99 a month and ESPN has an introductory price of $29.99.

The bundle will launch October 2 and cost $39.99 a month, according to a person familiar with the rollout.

For those keeping score at home, this is basically Venu minus Warner Bros. Discovery content. And given that WBD quickly started losing the rights to sports content shortly after Venu was announced, that makes sense. Once they lost the NBA rights, it made little sense to still include WBD in such a bundle. In fact, WBD subsequently decided that their own company didn't really make sense as a bundle, as they're now splitting into – wait for it – Warner Bros. and Discovery, again.

Add to this the fact that both ESPN and Fox are on the verge of launching their own streaming services – on the same day, later this month, no less. Both having their own offerings and then giving an option to bundle then makes a lot more sense than trying to form a new company around that bundle – especially since ESPN had already announced that they would be launching the stand-alone ESPN streaming service separately from Venu.

And this new bundle will look more like marketing rather than an attempt by these power players in sports to crowd out the rest of the market – though Disney literally settled that issue as well thanks to the Fubo/Hulu + Live TV deal. Still, others might take issue with the power this new bundle will have over sports.

I realize I'm saying all of this and this new bundle is going to be a whole... $3 cheaper than the price Venu was targeting. A price which myself, and many others, thought was too expensive. But again, that had just as much to do with how much of a confusing mess Venu was. When you know that ESPN's new service is going to cost $29.99 and you know that Fox One is going to be $19.99, this looks like a nice $10 or so discount for anyone that was going to subscribe to both.

And it's a pretty compelling offering simply given Fox's NFL rights – which will augment the NFL rights Disney just expanded in a major way thanks to the ESPN equity deal with the league. There will still be games on CBS, and NBC/Peacock, and Prime TV, and Netflix, but this one bundle will give you a lot of the meat and potatoes. It moves ESPN one-step closer to being the de-facto sports bundle. Can Amazon counter?