Warner Bros. Discovery is backing away from its initial sports streaming strategy.
The company, which operates the Max streaming service, is reportedly ditching plans to launch a premium sports tier as originally announced in September of 2023, according to Brian Steinberg of Variety. Instead, Max will include its live sports properties in its Standard and Premium tiers, but restrict such content from its cheapest tier, Basic with Ads.
“Over the last year plus, we had the opportunity to assess how users engage with sports and news on Max, and we’ve been actively involved in exploring ways to evolve the sports distribution ecosystem in the U.S. We believe that the best place for that content for now is within the Standard and Premium tiers,” JB Perrette, CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games at WBD told Variety. “This update ensures that subscribers can continue to enjoy that coveted access within Max, while also enabling ongoing investment in our premium sports and news portfolio.”
The new strategy comes amid a substantial change of live sports rights under the WBD umbrella. When initial plans for the B/R Sports add-on were revealed, WBD had yet to lose its package of NBA games. In the wake of losing NBA rights, WBD has been aggressive acquiring sports rights to plug that hole and augment their larger properties that includes March Madness, MLB, and NHL games. Most notably WBD has added two CFP games, the French Open, and Big East and Big 12 packages.
Still, the company is not a “lead” partner for any of the above other than the French Open, at best alternating years of premier inventory for March Madness and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. While WBD has a little bit of everything, it’s hard to envision a subscriber that would be enticed to purchase an add-on tier for longer than a month or so to watch a specific event.
During the original announcement, WBD suggested that Max’s B/R Sports add-on would begin as a complimentary offering for Max subscribers before moving to a higher, paid tier. The streaming service never reached the point of actually charging for the add-on, and now the idea has been scrapped entirely.
As has been previously reported, the B/R Sports add-on launch has been marred by tech issues, including the successful implementation of a paywall. WBD cited it was finalizing “tech integrations” last year as a reason for the delay. Some will remember, TNT was forced to air the first edition of The Match, a pay-per-view event between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, for free after its paywall failed to work properly.
Wednesday’s announcement should come as a welcome surprise for current Standard or Premium tier Max subscribers, who will now keep access to WBD’s live sports portfolio at no additional cost.
