Game On! Top Congressmen Want Disney, Fox & Warner Bros Discovery CEOs To Spill Details On Joint Sports Streaming Service

deadline.com:

Two top Congressman want Bob Iger, David Zaslav and Lachlan Murdoch to provide some solid answers about Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and Fox’s proposed sports streaming service.

Putting their political feet on the gas, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) want a response by the end of the month, and they want the Department of Justice looped in. “The Joint Venture raises questions about how this new offering would affect access, competition, and choice in the sports streaming market,” wrote Nadler, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Castro, a longtime guardian of antitrust issues in the media, to the trio of CEOs today (read it here). “Without more complete information about the pricing, intent, and organization of this new venture, we are concerned that this consolidation will result in higher prices for consumers and less fair licensing terms for upstream sports leagues and downstream video distributors.” The request that the DOJ be cc’d on all the responses due by April 30 from Disney, Fox and WBD definitely raises the stakes.

As you can see below, the Democrats sent list of 19 questions about the potential anticompetitive nature of the “Joint Venture.” Specifically, Nadler and Castro want to know how it will work, cost, bid on contracts, license sports channels and what they plan to do “to prevent anti-competitive sharing of pricing or other competitively sensitive information” – AKA: Open the books.Mr.

Robert IgerChief Executive Officer The Walt Disney CompanyMr. Lachlan MurdochExecutive Chair and Chief Executive Officer FOXMr.