Disney is buying Fubo and plans to merge the sports streaming platform with its Hulu + Live TV service, gaining 70 percent ownership of the company that up until today was suing it over antitrust concerns and allegations of anticompetitive practices.
According to Fubo’s announcement today, the unified company will be known as Fubo, and Fubo executives will run it. People will also continue to be able to subscribe to Fubo without subscribing to Hulu + Live TV and vice versa. Also part of the announcement is the revelation that Fubo has settled its antitrust lawsuit against Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) over Venu, a joint venture sports app that the companies plan to launch and that Fubo was seeking to block, citing the three firms' allegedly anticompetitive practices.
Fubo had previously claimed that Disney, Fox, and WBD had forced it to pay for irrelevant channels that don’t appeal to sports fans by bundling those networks with sports networks. Fubo’s lawsuit accused Disney and Fox of forcing it to spend millions on unwanted content and forcing it “to drop valuable channels” through price hikes. (...)
Sweetening the deal is an agreement from Disney, Fox, and WBD to pay Fubo an aggregate cash payment of $220 million upon the deal’s closure.
The merger is still subject to regulatory and Fubo shareholder approval as well as “other customary closing conditions,” per Fubo. It’s expected to take 12 to 18 months to close, The Hollywood Reporter said.
Fubo’s about-face
Fubo's merger with Disney represents a shocking about-face for the sports-streaming provider, which previously had raised alarms (citing Citi research) about Disney's ownership of 54 percent of the US sports rights market—ESPN (26.8 percent), Fox (17.3 percent), and WBD (9.9 percent). Fubo successfully got a preliminary injunction against Venu in August, and a trial was scheduled for October 2025.
Fubo CEO David Gandler said in February that Disney, Fox, and WBD “are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors.
Sweetening the deal is an agreement from Disney, Fox, and WBD to pay Fubo an aggregate cash payment of $220 million upon the deal’s closure.
The merger is still subject to regulatory and Fubo shareholder approval as well as “other customary closing conditions,” per Fubo. It’s expected to take 12 to 18 months to close, The Hollywood Reporter said.
Fubo’s about-face
Fubo's merger with Disney represents a shocking about-face for the sports-streaming provider, which previously had raised alarms (citing Citi research) about Disney's ownership of 54 percent of the US sports rights market—ESPN (26.8 percent), Fox (17.3 percent), and WBD (9.9 percent). Fubo successfully got a preliminary injunction against Venu in August, and a trial was scheduled for October 2025.
Fubo CEO David Gandler said in February that Disney, Fox, and WBD “are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors.
Now, set to be a Disney company, Fubo is singing a new tune, with its announcement claiming that the merger “will enhance consumer choice by making available a broad set of programming offerings.”
In a statement today, Gandler added that the merger will allow Fubo to “provide consumers with greater choice and flexibility" and "to scale effectively," while adding that the deal "strengthens Fubo’s balance sheet” and sets Fubo up for “positive cash flow.” (...)
Disney didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“... a total deception”
Some remain skeptical about Disney buying out a company that was suing it over antitrust concerns.
"My initial reaction is that a defendant should not be able to buy its way out of antitrust liability by purchasing the plaintiff in a lawsuit. To the extent the plaintiff’s (Fubo’s) claims had any merit, then the deal will enshrine those anticompetitive effects,” Hal Singer, an economics professor at the University of Utah and managing director at Econ One, told Ars.
Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, which had joined two amicus briefs supporting Fubo's lawsuit, said in a statement shared with Ars that Fubo had previously "led sports fans and industry observers to believe they were genuinely interested in challenging Disney’s illegal joint venture in sports streaming, only to cash a check and leave consumers and the entire streaming industry worse off.
"It’s a total deception," Hepner continued. "This deal does not resolve any of the concerns laid out by Fubo in litigation against Disney’s attempts to concentrate the sports streaming market and in fact worsens the status quo. We urge President-Elect Trump’s antitrust enforcers, along with state AGs and private stakeholders, to challenge this blatantly illegal deal to protect consumers and competition.” [ed. hahahaha...it's complex, probably take four years at least.]
A statement from the American Economic Liberties Project today also described the merger as "a troubling escalation" that showed Disney "reinforcing its dominance in the sports streaming market and silencing opposition to its monopolistic practices."
"This move will leave consumers with fewer choices, higher prices, and less innovation in an already concentrated industry," the group said.
by Scharon Harding, Ars Technica | Read more:
Image:Fubo; Reddit/AZFamily; and via
[ed. From the comments: "Gangster Solves Murder Problem with More Murder", which might be a future Disney product based on the new superhero - Crime Man (he stops crimes exclusively by committing crimes, thereby out-criming the criminals). Here in action:
