Fox Expects Sports Streaming Venture With Disney And WBD To Hit 5M Subscribers In 5 Years, Lachlan Murdoch Says

The forthcoming sports streaming venture backed by Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery will reach 5 million subscribers in its first five years, according to a projection shared Monday by Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch.

Speaking at a conference hosted by Morgan Stanley, Murdoch cited the stat as a way of responding to questions about whether the new venture would threaten the company’s existing pay-TV business.

Fox “built its plans around” projections for 5 million subscribers, Murdoch said. “So some of the talk around this being in the teens or 20 million subs, we don’t think that’s the case.”

The JV “is a very good business for us” given the tens of millions of “cord-nevers” who want a cheaper way to access sports. The new sports subscribers will be “incremental to our base,” he added.

The sports venture was announced last month, but details are scant apart from its planned launch date this fall. The biggest missing piece is pricing. Murdoch didn’t challenge moderator Ben Swinburne when he stipulated a range of $40 to $50 a month. The service will aggregate 14 linear network feeds from the member companies, offering NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and other sports.

Despite continued strength in viewership, especially for the NFL and college football, sports programming is facing a complicated picture in terms of shifting consumer habit. With several million households dropping out of the pay-TV bundle each year, there is a growing urgency to establish a presence in streaming. Disney is aiming to launch a stand-alone version of ESPN as a streaming offering in addition to supporting the JV.

Murdoch said he does not expect any regulatory hassles as the JV approaches the market. Neither does he see any downside risk to the company’s valuable Fox News distribution base.

MORE to come …