On the heels of Venu Sports’ demise and DirecTV launching a streaming skinny sports bundle, cable operator Comcast this week unveiled its own skinny TV package featuring a lineup of sports and news networks.
The so-called Sports & News TV package offers 50 networks for $70 per month when customers also get Xfinity Internet service from the provider. Consumers can get the lineup through a traditional X1 set-top box or via streaming through the Xfinity Stream app.
Sports networks include ESPN, FS1, Golf Channel, ACC Network, Big Ten Network and SEC Network. It also comes with local broadcast networks ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and Telemundo, and cable news networks CNBC, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. And Comcast is adding a subscription to NBCUniversal-owned Peacock, along with 300 hours of cloud DVR storage. Peacock itself is poised to serve up more than 8,000 hours of live sports, including NFL football games, Premiere League soccer, and soon NBA basketball games. Customers also get access to over 100 streaming channels incorporated into the channel guide.
However, to get channels like CBS Sports, NFL Network, NFL RedZone and NBA TV customers need to add the “More Sports and Entertainment” package, priced at an additional $9.99 per month. Comcast pitched this as a way for consumers to customize their TV packages if they want more sports, while also touting its $15 per month StreamSaver bundle that launched last year and includes Apple TV+, Netflix and Peacock.
“With Sports & News TV, we’ve brought together top networks for live sports and news and Peacock, the best streaming service for sports fans, to create a new video bundle packed with the best content at an unbeatable price, all accessible within a premium viewing experience that makes it easy for customers to find the content they care about most,” said John Dixon, SVP of Entertainment at Comcast, in a statement..
Comcast’s pricing is on par with that of virtual MVPD DirecTV Stream’s MySports package – which is offering an even skinnier, 40-network lineup for just under $70 per month following a three-month intro price of about $50 per month. In addition to the ESPN channel suite and FS1 and FS2, DirecTV’s lineup also includes TNT, TBS and TruTV, MLB Network, NBA TV, NFL Network and NHL Network and intends to offer ESPN+ at no additional cost. But unlike Comcast, DirecTV doesn’t have a broadband product to bundle the pay TV offering with. DirecTV’s offering is initially only available in 24 metro areas.
Comcast has local CBS broadcast, which is currently missing from DirecTV’s lineup, but neither sports-focused bundle includes CBS Sports in non-local markets – something DirecTV was reportedly working on, but that TVREV analyst Alan Wolk called out in a recent column as a shortcoming of the DirecTV offering given the network’s NFL game lineup.
Also missing from the DirecTV package is a full regional sports lineup, which in part, made Wolk question who the bundle is aimed at, as the firm noted there are usually fans of a specific sport – which it dubs ESPN fans - and fans of a specific team (aka RSN fans).
“While ESPN fans will be happy with this sort of service, RSN fans will not, because, as of now, MySports does not include access to any RSNs. And while some RSNs have indeed launched their own streaming services, most have not, meaning the only way to access them is via a traditional bundle,” wrote Wolk of DirecTV’s MySports offering. “And if you have a traditional bundle, you have no need for MySports or MyFubo or any other sort of sports skinny bundle.”
It doesn’t look as though Comcast is offering regional sports networks either.
Still, while not a complete sports package, the ability to bundle sports networks together without other less-popular channels bloating the lineup has been a desire of several distributors in the industry, including DirecTV.
The dissolution of Venu earlier this month (brought on following an antitrust settlement with Fubo and related controlling 70% ownership buyout of the vMVPD by Disney) seems to have accelerated that ability. Without shuttering Venu, the media company JV partners (Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox) faced potential continued antitrust legal action over their alleged practices related to requirements in carriage agreements imposed on distributors for the right to carry their networks. Those so-called tying practices, which forced bundling of popular sports networks with less desirable ones, prohibited the ability for distributors like DirecTV and Fubo from offering skinnier, customized sports bundles – restrictions the channel owners didn’t impose on themselves for the planned Venu Sports skinny linear sports offering, raising antitrust concerns.
DirecTV and Dish pushed back after the Venu settlement, saying underlying antirust concerns were still valid. A day later Venu was discontinued, and DirecTV launched MySports the next week.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal was never part of the Venu JV, a notable absence along with Paramount, particularly after NBCU secured an 11-year NBA rights deal last year alongside Disney and Amazon Prime Video, while long-time rights holder WBD lost out.