What You’ll Be Able to Watch on Venu, the New Sports Streaming Service (Unless It Gets Shut Down by a Lawsuit)
The streaming environment can be difficult for sports fans to navigate. Byzantine licensing agreements between platforms and sports broadcasters result in fans either missing out on some sports or paying through the nose to watch whatever they want.
Enter Venu Sports, a sports-focused streaming option that promises to stream “thousands of live sporting events from all major professional sports leagues and top college conferences” for $42.99 per month (after a free 7-day trial).
Venu is expected to launch this fall—right before the start of football season—but that hasn’t been decided yet. The ambitious sports streaming platform has some legal hurdles to clear if it is to launch on schedule.
What can you watch on Venu Sports?
A joint venture between ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox, Venu will offer all sports currently broadcast by its parent companies. This includes the NHL, MLB, college football and basketball, most NFL games, most NBA games and many other sports.
Venu will also carry 14 sports networks, including all ESPN channels, ABC, Fox, TNT and TBS sports channels, as well as a ton of smaller channels such as the ACC Network, SEC Network and Big Ten Network.
What not to watch on Venu Sports?
If you were hoping for an “I want to watch all sports” option for one price, Venu is a step in the right direction, but it’s not quite there, even at the current monthly price of $42.99. Here’s what you won’t be able to watch on Venu:
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Every NFL game. Venu will offer most NFL games, but CBS and NBC are not part of the agreement, so Sunday Night Football and some Sunday afternoon games will not be available on Venu (unless a new agreement is reached between now and the service’s launch). Amazon owns the rights to Thursday night football games, so it appears they won’t be streaming on Venu either, just like the two games Netflix has scheduled for Christmas.
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Every NBA game. The rights to broadcast professional basketball were held by TNT parent company Warner Bros. for many years. (now Warner Bros. Discovery), but starting in the 2025–2026 season, the rights will likely be split between Disney, NBC and Amazon . So any games that NBC and Amazon stream are unlikely to be available on Venu.
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Olympic Games. NBC has exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics through the 2032 Summer Games.
There are some legal issues that need to be resolved before launching Venu.
Venu will have to overcome some legal hurdles before it launches this fall. Streaming platform Fubo has filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against Venu and unspecified damages. Fubo claims that the combination of Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox will prevent other sports distributors (like Fubo) from competing fairly.
Another potential legal opponent: the US government. The Justice Department is reportedly scrutinizing Venu to determine whether its structure would violate antitrust rules, and members of Congress are already demanding Venu provide answers about how it prevents collusion and ensures customer privacy, as well as explain how it sets its prices. .