A look at the game-changing platform that will transform sports streaming

Live sports is one of the few areas that has struggled to transition to streaming. ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have announced a joint app that hopes to be a one stop shop for online sports.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

There’s a giant new live sports streaming service coming from the companies behind ESPN, Fox Sports, TBS and TNT. They’re teaming up to combine their coverage of pro football, basketball, baseball, college sports and a lot of other events. NPR TV critic Eric Deggans is here with more. Hi, Eric.

ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Hi.

SHAPIRO: Does this streaming service even have a name yet? What more can you tell us about it?

DEGGANS: No, it doesn’t have a name. And more importantly, it doesn’t have a price attached yet. So we’ve got these three companies – Disney, Fox and Warner Brothers Discovery – which announced that they are forming a joint venture to create a streaming service that would bring together sports programming from outlets like ESPN, ESPN+, ABC, Fox Sports, TBS, much more. Each of these three companies would own one-third of the new entity, and they would license their content to this new streaming service.

Now, the service is going to have its own brand, its own name, an independent management team, and they expect the sports that they’re going to feature will cover the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, pro hockey, college sports, golf and much more. They say that subscribers are going to be able to buy the service in a bundle with other services that the companies control, like Hulu, Disney+ and Max, and is planned to launch sometime this fall.

SHAPIRO: This sounds like such a big announcement and at a time when a lot of streamers are scaling back their ambitions. Why do you think this is happening now?

DEGGANS: My hunch is that we’ve reached a crucial moment in streaming and sports. I mean, live sports is one of the few areas of TV programming that streaming services have not been able to overshadow…