蘑菇AV

And you wrote a piece noting that ESPN taking a shot at creating a sports streaming hub. So our streaming hub specifically for sports, CNBC explaining that the platform would direct users to the services where games are being broadcast. And you write that, "One proposed model would grant ESPN a cut of revenue for every user that signs up for a competing service via its hub."

And then you've also got ESPN Bet. You had casino company, Penn Entertainment, just inked a $2 billion deal with Disney owned ESPN to rebrand its sports betting app to ESPN Bet. So lots of players, Paul. Who are the largest players? Paul Verna (08:58):. FanDuel has 46% of the US market and DraftKings has about 25%, so they are by far the biggest two.

And there have been reports that Disney is working on making its ESPN linear channels available as a standalone streaming service. Warner Bros. Discovery: Because HBO Max was one of the most popular subscription streaming services, and its reach should only increase with Discovery鈥檚 offerings, Max has the potential to become a large ad business.

This would likely include A&E, FX, History, Lifetime, National Geo and Vice, likely not included would be ESPN and the Disney branded channels like the Disney Channel and Disney Junior. The wild card is the ABC group because selling it off would mean Disney would basically exit the news business.

He was saying many of the accounts that break sports news, Adam Schefter, Sham Sarania, Woj used to be before he retired, ESPN, Ian Rappaport of NFL Network and they're not yet on Bluesky. When they shift that could also, or if they shift, there could be a bit of a wave there as well. Daniel Konstantinovic (06:34):.

It's interesting that they've been talking so publicly about this idea and about plans with ESPN that makes it seem like it's a little bit more of a real thing than just some frivolous statement. It clearly got a lot of attention and I think the success of Disney+ on a pretty quick turnaround shows that viewers will follow and advertisers will follow.

Digital live sports viewers have surpassed traditional pay TV live sports viewers in the US, per 蘑菇AV forecast. This trend will continue next year, when 114.1 million people will watch sports via digital while 82.0 million will watch via TV.

So a day after the WNBA Championship, the big headline on ESPN is a holdout. There's already talks of a lockout happening for next year and this is as the WNBA Players Association is going to try to leverage themselves for a much better CBA contract. And if you were to put then... How much money is at stake?

And Jeremy notes that Disney's ABC and ESPN will continue to host the NBA finals and Christmas Day games. NBCU gets opening night games and a new Sunday night primetime slot, and also the all-star game. And Amazon gets the play-in tournament and will help with the NBA League Pass, and then there's a bunch of games divvied up amongst them.

This is how YouTube and Apple TV and all the others, peacock, Disney, paramount, they all started maybe not Disney, they'd already had ESPN. But a lot of these companies start by licensing a couple of games or franchises and then they go deeper into it as Amazon has done as YouTube has done. So I think this is a first step for Netflix.

If they're going to compete with the ESPN and Fox sports joint venture, they'd need something a little more substantial. And this partnership would not give them any regional sports network coverage, which I think is the biggest part missing from the ESPN/Fox deal.

In terms of Disney, just wait until ESPN has its standalone broadcasting channel that can go out to everyone in the US. It's going to have huge audience numbers when it does come out. Marcus Johnson:. Negative points for Ethan. You went horribly long and not just because you came after me for not using our numbers. That was actually a good point.

But in reality, one of the things that makes this a big milestone is that this would be the first time that a major US league sports package is essentially a streaming deal because we're talking about ESPN, peacock and Amazon as the leading players here. I think this is also milestone because it's going to open the way for more of the kind of digital bundling we've seen.

These might be negotiation tactics, but as the customers rage quit from charter because they can't get ESPN and they can't get ABC, particularly as college football and now the NFL are kicking off, Disney would love to spin it that they're all heading towards Hulu, but maybe they wouldn't love to spin it because they also don't want to increase the value of Hulu because then they have to give Comcast more

And the fact that you don't know that yet and you don't know how it's going to differentiate between the upcoming app ESPN is going to have, there's a lot of question marks for a service that's supposed to be launching within the next 60 to 90 days. Wouldn't be surprised if it gets pushed out to launch somewhere six months from now. Marcus Johnson (13:50):. I Nike's generous too.

It is more viewers than ESPN Plus and is nearly as many viewers as Peacock and Paramount Plus. So those are bigger names, more famous services, that charge. And that these FASST options are competitive with them already.