While the market is slowly transitioning away from the traditional cable and satellite experience in favor of streaming, NBCUniversal is reportedly mulling the idea of launching a new sports cable network.
Citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reports the new sports network could launch as early as this fall. The network would also be home to a variety of live sports, including the NBA when the NBCU’s new multi-year agreement kicks in later this year.
Although NBCU has already invested a lot of time and effort into transitioning its sports content over to its Peacock streaming service, the plan wouldn’t be to transition that same content back over to the new sports network.
Instead, the cable network would act as a cable alternative to Peacock, showing the same sports content that’s available to stream with a Peacock Premium subscription.
In this sense, the new sports network would not only be aimed at those that don’t want to pay for a Peacock subscription on top of a live TV package, but also homes that have yet to transition to streaming in general.
As is often the case with reports like this, WSJ notes that the discussions are still in early stages, and there is no guarantee that the sports network will launch at all, let alone as suggested.
The report comes just one day after Peacock increased in price. Following the latest price increase, a Peacock Premium subscription now costs a minimum of $10.99 a month, and an ad-free Premium Plus subscription now costs a minimum of $16.99 a month.
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