Greetings from Charlotte, where I’m currently spending my time on-site at SBJ headquarters.

I spent the weekend in Chicago at my younger sister’s wedding, where I made only one sports reference in my maid of honor speech. While I had a blast, I didn’t get to watch any WNBA games, including Caitlin Clark’s record for assists as a rookie and Angel Reese’s double-double with 20 rebounds (making Reese the fastest player to record 20 double-doubles in a single WNBA season).

While the WNBA is back, football is also moving full steam ahead. But anyone hoping to stream NFL or college games from Fox Sports, ESPN and/or TNT on Venu Sports will have to wait a little longer, as FuboTV has successfully blocked the launch of this stripped-down package until at least 2025.

More on that later.

Fubo blocking the launch of Venu Sports until at least 2025 or beyond was the biggest headline of the weekend, but is more likely to hit Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery than ESPN and Disney.

The three parties that launched Venu have announced they will appeal. Together, they “respectfully dissented” from U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett’s decision, saying they believe Fubo’s arguments are “wrong as to fact and law.” WBD, ESPN and Fox also called their product a “pro-competitive option” aimed at customers who don’t subscribe to a sports service.

However, sources told SBJ that Disney sees Venu as merely a small piece of a much larger puzzle of its sports strategy, with ESPN’s upcoming direct-to-consumer flagship product being the company’s top priority.

ESPN will support the appeals process, but the source said ESPN will weigh its options as the case progresses through the courts.

There is also no guarantee as to how the industry will develop in the future and what other packages or streaming services might emerge in the coming years.

The situation is different at Fox. ESPN may be the driving force behind Venu, but the platform relies on Fox’s backend technology (as opposed to any new technology development). WBD also recently lost rights to the NBA starting with the 2025-26 season (a decision that is being contested in court), and while WBD has smaller to mid-sized deals, Venu would have given the company a bit more momentum in the sports rights landscape.

How did we get here? And what happens next?

How did the court reach this conclusion? Fubo’s main complaint is that Venu could put vMVPD out of business. The court concluded that Venu would “substantially lessen competition and restrain trade” and therefore granted a preliminary injunction. The judge also wrote that Fubo would likely succeed in court.

Will this platform ever see the light of day? Not likely. Venu had hoped to launch its product before college football and the NFL this season, but that seems to be on hold. Besides, this was just a challenge from a competitor.

Venu also made waves with its $42.99 per month subscription price. That’s a steep price for sports fans and doesn’t include content from competitors like NBCUniversal, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Paramount/CBS, Netflix, or other RSNs.

Will the networks feel the pinch from lost ad revenue? Not really. As I reported earlier this month, Venu’s three partners weren’t planning to split ad revenue, and Venu, unlike other MVPDs and vMVPDs, wasn’t looking to sell its own inventory (albeit limited).

ESPN, Fox, WBD and Fubo all declined to comment beyond their public statements.

The most important thing to keep an eye on is the impending launch of ESPN’s flagship DTC product, which is scheduled to launch before the 2025 football season. With Bob Iger, Jimmy Pitaro and the rest of the company focused on this product, Venu could become a platform that disappears into the annals of history before it even gets off the ground.

Venu Sports’ legal setback could cause ESPN to weigh its options

It feels a bit like the eye of the storm for the sports media right now. We’ve gone through the rigors of the Paris Olympics and the football madness isn’t far behind. But while we wait for the regular season to kick off (Week 0 is coming up this weekend), here are some other stories that caught my attention:

• The highly linear TV schedule of college volleyball: I’m looking for Nebraska-Louisville on Sept. 22 on ABC and Texas vs. Kentucky on Oct. 13 on ESPN. Those are some top matchups in ESPN’s most comprehensive coverage of its kind on linear TV yet. Big Ten Network will also have nearly 50 linear broadcasts, the most in network history (I’m watching Stanford-Nebraska on Sept. 18 on BTN and Wisconsin vs. Texas on Sept. 1 on Fox).

• Debuts in the USL Super League: There are officially two professional women’s soccer leagues in the United States. The USL Super League debuted on Saturday, with Carolina Ascent FC taking on DC Power FC and Spokane Zephyr FC taking on Fort Lauderdale United FC. Peacock is the league’s streaming partner, expanding NBCU’s partnership with the USL. I’m excited to head to Coney Island to watch Brooklyn FC.

• From the studio to the cabin: MLB Network’s “MLB Central” team will be doing a game together for the first time. Robert Fores, Mark De Rosa and Lauren Shehadi will be featured on MLB Net’s “Showcase” broadcast of the week when the Phillies face the Royals on August 24. The broadcast will not be available in Philly or Kansas City.

The dark brown paneled office off the lobby of Steve Bornstein’s Beverly Hills home features the typical décor of a man who spent a decade leading ESPN’s rapid growth and then reshaping the NFL’s media strategy over the next.

But that rise was called into question when he rose from chairman and CEO of ESPN to president of ABC Television in 1999. Bornstein held that position for just six months before reluctantly agreeing to lead an unsuccessful attempt to spin off all of the company’s Internet assets. That effort failed spectacularly, and he resigned in 2002, convinced he had been pushed out.

But in a twist worthy of Greek theater, Bornstein soon found himself face-to-face with his former employers. He was hired as a consultant to the NFL to negotiate a “Sunday Ticket” extension with DirecTV. The deal included an option to create a league-owned network with guaranteed distribution. He later served as the NFL’s EVP/Media, tasked with crafting the strategy and leading negotiations for the most valuable TV rights package in sports, up for renewal after the 2004 season. When that was finalized, Bornstein had delivered a then-staggering $4.4 billion package that gave CBS and Fox raises of over 20%, brought NBC back after an eight-year hiatus, moved “Monday Night Football” from ABC to ESPN for double the fee and skipped ABC altogether.

It’s that legacy that qualifies Bornstein for the 2024 Class of Champions: Pioneers & Innovators, SBJ’s Bill King writes in this week’s issue. For more coverage of Bornstein, check out this timeline and what others have to say about his career.

Matthew Morgan

• Longtime sports agency and NBC Sports executive Bob Basche, known for developing and coining the term “Breakfast at Wimbledon,” recently died after a battle with throat cancer, SBJ’s Terry Lefton writes in an obituary. Basche wrote an editorial for SBJ in 2009 on the 30th anniversary of “Breakfast at Wimbledon,” in which he wrote, in part: “Six months before Wimbledon, our production team … held a brainstorming production seminar on how we could change our approach to Wimbledon for a live audience and at the unheard of East Coast hour of 9 a.m. Given that early, I casually mentioned that it would probably just be called ‘Breakfast at Wimbledon.'” The conference room fell silent as everyone digested that perfect advertising slogan, and the rest is history.”

• The end of the Paris Olympics has severely reduced NFL preseason viewership in the first week, with NFL Network airing 14% fewer games than last year and 12% fewer than two years ago (excluding the HOF Game in all years), notes SBJ’s Austin Karp.