Warner Bros. Discovery is entering the direct-to-consumer live sports market.
The company announced Tuesday that a sports add-on tier will be available on its Max streaming service beginning Oct. 5. The Bleacher Report Add-On package will offer any sports programming airing on TBS, TNT and TruTV. That includes baseball, NHL and NBA games as well as U.S. men's and women's soccer matches and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Warner Bros. Discovery has the option in its NHL contract of putting games exclusively on Max but WBD Sports chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser has decided that simulcasting is the route they will take.
“We made what I think is a pretty different decision than some of our peers, which is we don’t want to play judge in terms of which game is going to stay on linear and which game is going to be exclusive on Max. We’re going to give people the same choice,” he said. “They can watch it on our channels in the linear world, or they can watch it on Max without having to figure it out.”
The package will also have select international events from Bleacher Report, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The add-on package will be free to all Max subscribers through Feb. 29, 2024, before going to $9.99 per month.
Max was launched in May. Besides sports, it is adding news from CNN on Sept. 27.
