Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed on an earnings call this morning that it plans to remove sports from HBO Max and launch a separate, standalone sports streaming service called TNT Sports. The move runs counter to other major streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime, which are bundling sports and scripted content on a single platform.
One caveat is, of course, WBD sifting through offers for the company – most notably from Paramount – and is expected to decide by December; so the TNT Sports app might never hatch. As it stands, HBO Max, which has 128 million subscribers globally, would remain with the studios after WBD spins off the cable TV stations by the middle of next year – assuming again the whole company is not sold. The TNT sports app would be a part of the spinoff.
“We have found that all of our movies and scripted series, together with local content and local sport, is a very compelling offering outside the US, and that it’s a driver of real growth, and it’s quite differentiated,” said WBD CEO David Zaslav. “Here in the US… we were so robust in our storytelling, that we didn’t find that the sports were providing enough value for us in terms of incremental subs, which was why we didn’t get that many. There was some engagement. But the view is for us that HBO Max is much stronger as being the motion picture and storytelling product, not dependent on rental sports.”
One question that arises with streamers like Netflix is does sports drive subscriber growth and retention. They generally don’t directly answer the question, talking about engagement and awareness instead to justify their sports spend. Sports is also such a small slice of the entertainment offerings at Prime and Netflix that any growth from sports is not magnified. That’s not the case with Paramount+ and Peacock, platforms with stronger sports offerings and fewer scripted shows than Amazon and Netflix. Peacock saw sub growth, for example, just from the 2024 Paris Olympics and an NFL playoff game.
No company executive has specifically said sports is not a driver of subs or a benefit to subs until Zaslav’s comment. It is in keeping with his approach to sports over the years. His 2022 comment that TNT didn’t need the NBA set in motion WBD’s ultimate loss of those rights. It has tried to backfill with other sports, such as MLB playoff games, some College Football Playoff early-round games, and the French Open.
But such rights aren’t consistent programming the way the NBA is. Gaps in sports programming would lead to greater subscriber churn, so a tennis fan subscribing for two weeks of the French Open and then canceling.
“ The highest profile is Roland Garros, and my guess is that he got high subs (and great reviews), but they churned off because there was no continuity in tennis coverage,” said one media analyst.
Warner Bros. Discovery also has NASCAR rights, but it doesn’t seem to have a sports package that would justify a standalone app. The lack of the NFL, NBA, and substantial exposure to MLB are clearly reasons Max is not seeing sub-growth in sports. TNT Sports, assuming it does launch again, will surely have a tough road to hoe, finding a market niche.
“Sounds to me like somebody who’s going to spin off all their sports assets as part of the linear networks,” said Bob Thompson, a sports media consultant. “Maybe they don’t feel they need sports, but it’s kind of interesting that all the other streaming services certainly feel it adds value!”
About Daniel Kaplan
Daniel Kaplan has been covering the business of sports for more than two decades. A proud founding reporter of SportsBusiness Journal, he spent the last four years at The Athletic.