What sports fans need to know about a new streaming service

Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery announced Tuesday that they would team up and sell access to all the sports they broadcast through a new streaming service. It will be available this fall, but many other details, such as price or who would perform the service, are not yet known.

The subtext of the deal – and of most decisions media companies make – is that the cable bundle is collapsing. Ten years ago, approximately 100 million households in the United States subscribed to a package of cable or satellite television channels. Today that number is around 70 million, and falling.

Media companies know that young adults are no longer signing up for cable, and that their best customers are also the oldest. They know that people no longer think about “television” but are instead accustomed to “content” that can be viewed on a television, a phone or some other device.

Cable's days seem to be numbered, but at this point it's still a profitable business — streaming isn't for most companies — and the largest audiences for shows, especially sports, still exist on traditional television. How do media companies get from where they are now to where they will be in the future?

With, they hope, deals like those announced this week.

How does it work?

Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have bundled 14 of their channels that show sports – the full list includes ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNews, Fox, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS and truTV – and the streaming service ESPN+, and will sell them as one package.

How much is it?

That was not announced. But you can expect it to cost more than the fifteen dollars a month that most streaming companies charge, and less than the hundred dollars it costs each month to subscribe to a pay TV package. Ads will appear on the new service.

Is this a streaming service or a cable-like channel bundle?

Both, sort of. It is definitely a streaming service that you can subscribe to and watch on different devices. But instead of a menu of different programs that you can watch on demand, there will be channels that you can watch live, just like cable customers do.

As a result, this means that subscribers to the service can also watch the non-sports programs that these channels air on television, such as 'The Simpsons' and 'The Bachelor'.

What about all the content that isn't sports?

The contracts between networks and leagues are usually specific about where games can be shown. Due to fears of smaller audiences, most leagues are hesitant to drop too many games from television and cable channels and switch entirely to streaming. But this new service is structured in such a way that it offers everything on the included channels: both sports and non-sports content. That makes it more like pre-existing cable bundles and means the companies didn't need permission from the leagues to show the games on the service.

Is this the only service I need to watch all the sports I want?

No. Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have paid for the right to show a lot of sports, but they don't own the rights to everything.

NBC, CBS, Amazon and other smaller players are not part of this agreement. So if you want to watch the sports they have the rights to – including many National Football League, golf majors and the PGA Tour, the men's basketball tournament, the Olympics and the English Premier League, among others – you'll still have to tune in to those subscribe channels.

So how do I get all the sports?

Well, you subscribe to a pay TV package, or in Amazon's case, Amazon Prime. You can get what's shown on CBS and NBC with a cheap digital antenna, but if you want the games on USA or the CBS Sports Network, you'll have to get a pay TV package. For any games exclusively on NBC's Peacock streaming service (like this season's NFL playoff game between Kansas City and Miami) or CBS's Paramount+ streaming service, you'll need to subscribe to them.

Will Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery channels still part of the regular cable or satellite packages?

Yes.

If I need to subscribe to cable to get sports on CBS and NBC channels, and the Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. channels. Discovery channels will be there too, so why should I bother with this new service?

Heavy sports fans might not want that. But this service takes many sports that were available on cable and sells them in a different way. If you care about all sports, or non-sports channels like Food Network or Nickelodeon, then this probably isn't for you.

But if you were to pay the one-time cost for a digital antenna and then buy this package, you could watch a large percentage of all sports on television for a price that is probably much cheaper than a cable subscription.

It may also be worth it if you are only a fan of a few sports. Do you like the National Basketball Association? Through this package you can get 100 percent of the nationally televised game. Like a smaller college sport, like volleyball? With this package you can get the most out of it.

This doesn't sound like a perfect solution.

Probably not. At this point, your options are: pay for a television package (and a handful of streaming services) to watch it all, get a digital antenna and watch the NFL and a few other major events on traditional television, or don't watch any sports.

One day you might be able to pay for individual games a la carte, or a service might bundle all the sports together and somehow offer them for a lower price than a cable subscription. This package could provide a bridge to that future for some sports fans.

Can you please stop calling it a package?

Blame the companies for not having a name. They just call it a 'joint venture'.