Topline
FuboTV filed a lawsuit against Disney, Warner Bros. and Fox Corporation on Tuesday in an effort to block the creation of a recently announced sports streaming service by the companies, alleging concerns of harm to competitors and that the companies wouldn’t allow Fubo to have a small bundle of sports channels they will now include in the new service, multiple outlets reported.
Key Facts
FuboTV alleges in the suit, which was viewed by the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, that the planned streaming service would “force Fubo to broadcast unwanted, expensive content that prevents Fubo from offering the sports-centric package of channels that its customers want,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
The lawsuit—which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York—seeks to block the creation of the service and requests punitive damages, the Journal reported.
Forbes has reached out to Fubo, Warner Bros., Fox and Disney for comment.
Big Number
More than 20%. That’s about how much shares for Fubo have fallen since Feb. 6, when news of the new joint streaming outlet broke.
Crucial Quote
“For decades, Defendants have leveraged their iron grip on sports content to extract billions of dollars in supra-competitive profits from distributors and consumers,” the suit said, according to the Journal. “Defendants earned many of these profits by ‘bundling’ their commercially critical sports content with other, less desirable content—forcing sports fans to purchase channels they did not want.”
Key Background
The new streaming platform was announced earlier this month and is expected to launch in the fall. It doesn’t yet have a name or pricing structure, though the networks behind it said it would combine each company’s sports offerings by making them available in one place and trying to give fans “outside of the traditional pay TV bundle … a new and differentiated experience.” The news of the venture came as sports have slowly been migrating to the streaming world in response to declining cable television viewership. After the new streaming platform was announced, FuboTV—a streaming service that primarily relies on traditional, linear channels—put out a statement questioning the “underlying motives and implication” of the venture and saying that “every consumer in America should be concerned about the intent behind this joint venture and its impact on fair market competition.” Fubo has been around since 2015 and has a stated goal of trying to use a one-app platform to “aggregate the best in TV, including premium sports, news and entertainment content.” In Q3 last year, it had 1.48 million subscribers in North America and brought in $313 million in North American revenue, according to its website.