The so-called streaming wars are morphing into the sports wars.
“The streaming world is different than the linear world. The big bundle protected linear in a way that streaming doesn’t have that protection. So one way to protect it is continuity in the sports calendar,” said Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong.
He told investors Thursday at the MoffettNathanson media conference in New York City that he finds it “helpful” Disney is pricing it upcoming stand-alone ESPN streaming app at $29.99 a month. (Peacock Premium is currently $7.99, and Premium Plus $13.99.) Disney announced the pricing and name Wednesday for the flagship DTC service available alone or bundled with Disney+ and Hulu.
Armstrong said Comcast bid for the NBA last year “because it fits exactly what we needed. We had a real void in the second quarter. [It’s] when you get into the heart of the playoffs. The playoffs have been fantastic, right? So we can’t wait for NBC to be part of that next year.”
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ESPN and TNT Sports (in the latter’s last season after parent Warner Bros Discovery failed to renew its package) set records for the playoffs’ opening weekend, and ratings are going strong.
Protection comes at a price: the NBCUniversal parent ponied up close to $2.5 billion a year in an 11-year deal for the biggest package of NBA rights starting in the 2025-2026 season. The company lost the NBA rights to Disney in 2002.
“There’s a lot of costs associated with that, both on the linear and the Peacock side, but our ability to go monetize that is sort of the question,” he said.
“Long term, the NBA is a positive thing for us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have done it. Our production qualities can be incredible. Michael Jordan’s coming our way … Our programming will be, we think, second to none. (NBC revealed at its Upfront presentation Monday that Jordan will join NBCU coverage as a special correspondent when its NBA deal starts this fall.
On ESPN, he said, “I challenge you to put side by side our sports content versus their sports content. It’s not far off, right? We are similar to NFL packages, similar to NBA packages. We’ve got more golf, they’ve got a little bit more baseball, but that’s in flux. We’ve got Premier League Soccer, we’ve got Olympics, we’ve got WWE we’ve got NASCAR. So, if you sort of stacked them up next to each other, it’d be an interesting conclusion.”
Sports led the conversation in a recent spate of earnings calls from Comcast to Disney to WBD to Fox earlier this week with executive commentary as, really, it’s what’s keeping the cable bundle intact in an ongoing exodus of linear subscribers, and sustaining advertising in a period of economic uncertainty.
Fox is launching its own streaming service called Fox One timed to the NFL this fall.
