As the competition among streaming services is heating up, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has launched a new sports tier on its Max service, as the streamer seeks to lure in more customers to subscribe to its flagship platform.
The service’s new “Bleacher Report” service will offer live access to MLB, NHL, and NBA games, in addition to additional major sporting events such as March Madness. The subscription add-on will also include access to the popular “Inside the NBA” studio program from TNT, as well as other specially selected international games.
Although the package is being offered for free until February 29th, 2024, it will eventually be priced at $9.99 per month for Max subscibers.
In a press release released prior to the new tier’s debut, the company said, “This will mark the first time that fans will have access on streaming platforms, in addition to linear, to WBD’s portfolio of premium live sports content, including more than 300 live games each year.”
The company is also seeking to leverage other types of live events such as news to build its subscribership. At the end of September, it will offer an open beta on Max which will feature a 24/7 streaming news service.
Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich has said previously of the Max service, “We’ve always thought that news would be a big part of Max. Sports as well.” She added that live services offer a sort of “stickiness” which will promote further consumption of streaming content, which can keep subscribers locked into a particular service.
The new service is launching amid a push by the company to improve the profitability of its streaming service, which thus far has proven a costly endeavor. Debuting at the end of May, the marketing and launch costs for the Max service produced a direct-to-consumer loss of $3 million in the second quarter for WBD. Although not ideal, it was a significant improvement upon the $558 million loss for WBD which it endured one year prior. In the first quarter, streaming losses had reversed.
CEO David Zaslav, on the company’s earnings call, said of the new live offerings, “news and sports are important, they’re differentiators, they’re compelling, and they make these platforms come alive.”
The company had noted that after the debut of its Max streaming service, customers who had subscriptions to both Max and Discovery shed their overlapping accounts, which generated higher levels of churn.
