Venu's Rise and Fall plus Sports Media Predictions for 2025

Looking at the road ahead

It’s been a strange start to 2025. We get a settlement between Disney and Fubo on their dispute, a report that Disney’s joint venture with Fox and Warner Bros Discovery, Venu was on a fast track to launch around the Super Bowl, then as quickly as we received that news, it was announced on Friday that Venu would not launch at all and be discontinued. I was going have Venu in my long-delayed sports media predictions, but its killing took care of that.

So we’re going to look at this Venu story plus have some other sports media tidbits in my first column of 2025 plus the sports media predictions for the year.

Work/life balance forced me to delay my Substack columns so my apologies to you. I wanted a regular schedule of posting columns, and that hasn’t happened, but if things go as I hope at work, I’ll be able to post more often.

I appreciate your patience as you wait for columns from me. Let’s get to the act.

Farewell, Venu Sports. We hardly knew ye

Logo courtesy Disney, Fox and WBD

When Venu was announced last year, it appeared that partners, Disney, Fox and WBD were all in. When Fubo sued seeking an injunction blocking the launch, the three companies made it look as if they were prepared for a long fight. Then last Monday as 2025 was just getting underway, Disney announced that it would purchase 70 percent of Fubo, merge it with its Hulu + Live TV service, and settle the lawsuit with the company. The New York Times reported that three partners would pay Fubo a combined $220 million