Max already has three streaming plans, and for more than a year, Warner Bros. Discovery was planning to launch a fourth. This fourth tier would have been devoted to sports programming, but Variety is now reporting that the company has nixed a plan to launch that tier. Instead, sports content will remain available to subscribers of the standard and premium service tiers.
“Over the last year plus, we had the opportunity to assess how users engage with sports and news on Max, and we’ve been actively involved in exploring ways to evolve the sports distribution ecosystem in the U.S. We believe that the best place for that content for now is within the Standard and Premium tiers,” said JB Perrette, CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games, WBD. “This update ensures that subscribers can continue to enjoy that coveted access within Max, while also enabling ongoing investment in our premium sports and news portfolio.”
This news comes as the company faces significant potential problems in the live sports arena. At the end of the current season, the company is set to lose access to the NBA games that it currently airs on TNT and streams through Max. That leaves a significant hole in their live sports portfolio, one that could make potential subscribers skeptical of an added cost.
Most of Max’s rivals are not currently charging extra for sports content, and that’s in spite of the increasing move toward live sporting events from companies like Netflix. Max subscribers who subscribe at the ad-supported level will lose access to sports at the end of March. If you subscribe at a higher level, your subscription should remain unchanged.
