The end of Venu Sports, and the future of sports streaming

Venu Sports seemed like an obvious idea. Instead of spreading all your sports viewing across millions of different platforms with millions of different interfaces and subscriptions, what if you could watch everything in one place? This makes perfect sense, until you get to the warnings. it Everything. This is going to be expensive. Some would argue that this is anti-competitive. Maybe this isn’t a good idea after all.

on this issue of The VergecastAfter a brief update on the status of the TikTok ban, we explore the brief life and quiet death of the projected future of sports streaming. Sportico’s Jacob Feldman joins the show to explain where Venu came from, why its parent companies – ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery – thought it was a good idea, and why Fubo immediately started fighting over its existence. Gave. We also now discuss the future of sports streaming after Venu’s departure, and whether ESPN, Amazon, or someone else could become the next worldwide leader.

after this, The VergeKevin Nguyen joins the show for the first time in our two-part New Year’s Resolution series. If you’re hoping to read more books this year, or just want to replace some of your aimless scrolling with more focused reading, Kevin has some tips on how to make it work on all your devices at all times of the day. There are suggestions. Sometimes you get to read a good book, but sometimes you have three minutes to wait in line at the coffee shop. If you do it right, both of these are great times to read.

Finally, we answer a question on the Vergecast Hotline (866-VERGE11, or email vergecast@theverge.com) about why your phone doesn’t allow you to play multiple audio sources at one time. We have some ideas about how this works — and also an easy way for Apple and Google to fix it.

If you want to learn more about everything discussed in this episode, here are some links to get you started: