By Joe Reedy
Streaming service FuboTV has filed an antitrust lawsuit against ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu, which are planning to launch a sports-streaming venture in the fall.
The lawsuit has been filed in the Southern District of New York. FuboTV, which focuses primarily on live sports, is seeking a jury trial.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the lawsuit.
"Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anticompetitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers and cheat consumers from deserved choice," David Gandler, Co-founder and CEO of FuboTV, said in a statement. "Simply put, this sports cartel blocked our playbook for many years and now they are effectively stealing it for themselves."
ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu declined to comment about the lawsuit.
FuboTV says in its filing that it has tried for years to offer a sports-only streaming service but has been prevented from doing so because of ESPN. Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery has imposed bundling requirements on FuboTV which it says forces "Fubo to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to license and broadcast content that its customers do not want or need."
"Faced with the threat of disruptive competition from Fubo and other upstarts, Defendants have responded by locking arms (and locking others out) to steal Fubo's core business idea — a sports-centric package of channels — while blocking Fubo from offering that same package," the company said in its court filing.
ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu announced their plans to offer a sports streaming service on Feb. 6. The three companies will each share one-third ownership in the joint venture. A name for the service and pricing will be announced at a later date.
FuboTV not only wants the proposed joint venture shut down, but it is seeking cash damages. If the court does not rule to do either, FuboTV is seeking restrictions on the joint venture so that competition remains in the marketplace.
FuboTV was founded in 2015. In its most recent quarterly filing last November, it reported 1.48 million paid subscribers in North America for the third quarter, an all-time high for the company.
Joe Reedy is an AP sports writer
Google is blasted by UK watchdog for what it calls anti-competitive behavior through digital ads
Google was slammed Friday by U.K. regulators who say it's taking advantage of its dominance in digital advertising to thwart competition in Britain, ratcheting up pressure that the tech giant is facing on both sides of the Atlantic over its "ad tech" business practices.
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said that the U.S. company gives preference to its own services to the detriment of online publishers and advertisers in Britain's 1.8 billion pound ($2.4 billion) digital ad market. The watchdog leveled its accusations after an investigation, and the findings could potentially lead to a fine worth billions of dollars or an order to change its behavior.
Google is a major player throughout the digital ad ecosystem, providing servers for publishers to manage ad space on their websites and apps, tools for advertisers and media agencies to buy display ads, and an exchange where both sides come together to buy and sell ads in real time at auctions.
"We've provisionally found that Google is using its market power to hinder competition when it comes to the ads people see on websites," the watchdog's interim executive director of enforcement, Juliette Enser, said in a press release.
The watchdog's charges, known as a statement of objections, arrive two years after it opened its investigation. Google's digital ad business is also the focus of a European Union antitrust investigation and a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit that's set to go to trial this month.
The CMA said that Google's "anti-competitive" conduct is ongoing, but the company disputed the allegations Friday.
"Google remains committed to creating value for our publisher and advertiser partners in this highly competitive sector," the company said in a prepared... Read More