ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu are accused of forming a ‘sports cartel’ as FuboTV files a lawsuit against the TV giants and their plan to launch a streaming service

Streaming service FuboTV has filed an antitrust lawsuit against ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu after announcing plans to launch a sports streaming venture in the fall.

Plans to launch the service were announced earlier this month. It will be released under an all-new brand name that will showcase football, basketball, baseball and hockey at the national and collegiate levels.

It will make sports available from various sources in one centralized app and will shake up the world of sports broadcasting.

The lawsuit was 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 designed to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher prices for subscribers, and defraud consumers of well-deserved choice,” said David Gandler, co-founder and CEO from FuboTV. a statement.

“Simply put, this sports cartel has blocked our playbook for years and now they’re essentially stealing it for themselves.”

ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu declined to comment on the lawsuit.

FuboTV says in its filing that it has been trying to offer a sports-only streaming service for years.

However, this has been prevented because ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery has imposed bundle requirements on FuboTV, which it says will force Fubo to spend hundreds of millions of dollars licensing and broadcasting content its customers don’t want or need. .’

‘Faced with the threat of disruptive competition from Fubo and other new entrants, Defendants responded by locking up arms (and locking out others) to steal Fubo’s core business idea – a sports-focused suite of channels – while preventing Fubo from doing the same package to offer,” the company said in its lawsuit.

The three companies will each share a third of the shares 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 closed, but is also seeking monetary damages.

If the court does not do this, FuboTV will demand restrictions on the joint venture so that competition on the market continues.

FuboTV was founded in 2015. In its most recent quarterly filing last November, the company reported 1.48 million paying subscribers in North America for the third quarter, a record high for the company.