The $42.99-per-month sports bundle was Venu Sports, a proposed U.S. streaming service from ESPN/Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. The companies announced the price in August 2024, but discontinued Venu on January 10, 2025. It never launched, so there is no Venu subscription or signup page today.
What Venu Sports was supposed to be
Venu was planned as a sports-focused virtual multichannel video programming distributor: a direct-to-consumer streaming app combining live sports networks from three major media companies rather than a general entertainment service or a replacement for Disney+.
Fox introduced the Venu name and described the proposed U.S. service as a joint venture involving ESPN (a Disney subsidiary), Fox Corporation and Warner Bros. Discovery. The intended launch window was fall 2024. See the Fox announcement for the original description.
Its intended audience was sports fans who wanted substantial live coverage without paying for a broad cable package full of unrelated channels.
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What the $42.99 price meant
The announced launch price was $42.99 per month. Contemporary reporting also described a planned seven-day free trial and launch-period introductory terms, including a possible opportunity for early customers to lock in pricing for a period. Those details were plans, not an operating subscription: Venu was canceled before anyone could complete a normal billing cycle. The original price report is archived by 9to5Mac, with contemporaneous coverage collected by Techmeme.
The economic pitch was straightforward: $42.99 would have been more than a typical entertainment streamer but potentially less than many full live-TV services that include news, entertainment and dozens of channels a sports-only household may not watch. It was never a current market rate, and it should not be used to calculate present-day savings against today’s services.
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Which sports Venu was expected to carry
Venu was expected to aggregate programming from ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery networks. That meant access to selected games and events associated with the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, college sports and other competitions carried by those networks—not every game in every league.
| Interest | Planned usefulness | Important limitation |
|---|---|---|
| NFL | Selected games and programming from participating networks | CBS and NBC were not part of the proposed package, so it would not have delivered every NFL game. |
| NBA | Coverage associated with ESPN and TNT/WBD rights | Rights, local availability and the schedule would determine which games were accessible. |
| MLB | Baseball programming carried by participating networks | No guarantee of every team, local broadcast or out-of-market game. |
| College sports | ESPN, Fox and conference-network programming | Conference and event rights vary considerably. |
| NHL and other sports | Additional events on the participating companies’ networks | It was not an all-sports replacement. |
The planned network mix was associated with ESPN, ESPN2 and other ESPN-family channels, ABC sports programming where applicable, Fox, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS and truTV. Because the app never launched, its final channel list, blackouts, device support, DVR rules, simultaneous streams and regional availability were never settled consumer specifications.
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Why it would not have replaced every sports subscription
Sports rights are divided among broadcasters. A bundle carrying networks from three companies can still omit local stations, exclusive national windows, regional sports networks and out-of-market packages. For an NFL-heavy household, the absence of CBS and NBC was particularly significant: many Sunday-afternoon and other nationally distributed games would still have required another provider or an antenna.
- “NFL, NBA and MLB” described the leagues represented in the programming mix, not complete league access.
- Local-market rights and blackout rules could have required another service.
- Viewers might still have needed an antenna for some local broadcast games.
- The $42.99 figure did not establish that taxes, regional fees or additional subscriptions were included.
- There were no real-world tests of Venu’s app reliability, picture quality, DVR behavior or supported devices.
The meaningful comparison would therefore have been Venu plus whatever services covered excluded games versus a full live-TV bundle or a combination of league-specific products—not Venu versus a single entertainment streamer.
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Why Venu was canceled before launch
Fubo challenged the proposed venture, arguing that its structure raised antitrust concerns and could restrict competition in sports streaming. A federal judge temporarily blocked the planned launch in 2024.
- ESPN/Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery announced Venu and its planned fall 2024 launch.
- Fubo filed litigation opposing the venture.
- A court temporarily prevented the service from launching.
- Disney and Fubo reached a broader arrangement involving Hulu + Live TV and Fubo.
- The parties settled the litigation; the defendants collectively paid Fubo $220 million under the settlement arrangement, as documented in Warner Bros. Discovery’s filing.
- On January 10, 2025, the three Venu companies announced that the joint venture would be discontinued.
The companies cited the changing marketplace and consumer demand in their official explanation. Legal opposition and the resulting strategic complications were central context, but it is more accurate to say Venu was abandoned amid those complications than to claim one court ruling alone permanently canceled it. Read the Warner Bros. Discovery statement or the ESPN Press Room announcement.
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What happened to the $42.99 offer?
Nothing operationally: no customer could subscribe, be billed, renew, or use the promised trial. The figure is now a historical announced launch price for a canceled product. Search results that still show $42.99 may lead to archived 2024 stories, outdated affiliate pages or unofficial summaries; there is no legitimate Venu signup flow.
Options for fans looking for similar coverage
No current service is a one-for-one replacement for the never-launched bundle. Choose based on the games and networks you actually need, then verify current rights, regional availability and blackouts.
- Fubo: a sports-oriented live-TV bundle for viewers seeking broad channel coverage.
- YouTube TV: a broader cable replacement with local broadcast channels, sports, news and entertainment.
- ESPN streaming products: useful for ESPN-centered viewing, but not a guarantee of every NFL, NBA or MLB game.
- Peacock: NBC programming and sports carried by NBC, not a complete replacement for ESPN, Fox or TNT/WBD.
- Paramount+: CBS programming and selected CBS sports, including applicable NFL games.
- Max: Warner Bros. Discovery entertainment and whatever sports access its current offering provides; it should not be assumed to reproduce Venu.
- League-specific services such as NFL+, NBA League Pass and MLB.TV, subject to local, national and postseason restrictions.
Current prices and rights change, so check each provider before subscribing rather than carrying forward Venu’s old $42.99 figure.
The Bottom Line
Venu Sports was a serious attempt to assemble ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery sports programming for $42.99 per month, but it never reached consumers. The service was discontinued on January 10, 2025, and the announced price is no longer an available deal.
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