Antitrust experts are raising alarm bells as entertainment giant Disney aims to control over 80 percent of nationally broadcast sporting events through joint venture with Fox and Warner. The CEO of competing platform Fubo says that Disney “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.”
Disney is poised to take over sports streaming by starting a joint venture with Fox and Warner to create a monopolistic streaming platform. The joint venture would bring together many popular sports viewing options — Disney owns ESPN and ABC, Fox owns Fox Sports, and Warner has TNT. According to Disney’s CFO Hugh Johnson, this venture will control “over 80 percent of the national games that are currently broadcast.” If antitrust authorities do not block this venture, Disney will use the platform to further push their political agenda on sports fans.
Breitbart has extensively reported on the left-wing propaganda Disney and ESPN have promoted to their viewers. In September 2023, ESPN+ launched a show hosted and co-produced by critical race theorist Ibram H. Kendi called “Skin in the Game” which “delves into and challenges racism in the sports world, and will reveal how pervasive racism is in sports, while challenging the thoughts and systems of various governing bodies,” as the company put in its press release.
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In another instance, ESPN Analyst Jalen Rose launched a campaign to cancel “Mt. Rushmore” saying “lets stop using the term Mt. Rushmore” because “it’s offensive.” Disney has also displayed a track record of discrimination against white men, conservatives, Jews and Christians. One example of this is former Mandolorian Star Gina Carano who was fired for her conservative tweets. As her lawyer noted, “Disney bullied Ms. Carano, trying to force her to conform to their views about cultural and political issues.” America First Legal is suing Disney for discriminating against “white American men, Christians, and Jews simply because of their race, sex, religion, and citizenship” after Disney’s discriminatory DEI policies were leaked.
In addition to its well known attempts to undermine Florida’s parental rights laws, Disney repeatedly promotes sexualized content to children. It released a Marvel series Ironheart, which its star said was targeted to “Little Trans Kids and Trans Teens.” It has an “LGBTQIA+” “Pride Collection,” with a children’s clothing line, whose profits go to far left groups.
ESPN is already the largest sports broadcaster in the country. When Disney bought Fox in 2017, the Trump Justice Department made it divest all of Fox’s regional sports networks to prevent it from becoming a sports broadcast monopoly — Disney had already agreed not to buy the national Fox Sports Network knowing that would also be blocked.
If not blocked, the Fox-Disney-Warner joint venture will allow it to circumvent the Trump administration’s antitrust conditions. This has already occurred with Hulu – which streams a mix of content from network and cable shows along with original content.
Like the proposed sports joint venture, Disney first joined Hulu through a consortium of big media companies such as NBC Universal, Fox, and WarnerMedia. Then in 2019 when the Fox merger was approved, Disney acquired Fox’s stake and effectively controlled Hulu. In 2023 it bought out the remaining partners for $8.6 billion and now has 100 percent ownership. Disney has used its dominance at Hulu to produce shows like a 1619 Project docu-series hosted by Nikole Hannah Jones which argues America is irredeemably racist and advocates for reparations.
According to reports, the Disney Joint Venture is expected to receive antitrust scrutiny from the Justice Department to determine if it would be a monopoly. Biden’s head of the Antitrust Division, Jonathan Kanter, has received praise from many Republicans for his strong stance against Big Tech, but he represented the News Media Alliance, which includes many Fox, Warner, and Disney companies.
A competing sports platform, Fubo, has filed an antitrust suit against Disney, Warner, and Fox. Fubo CEO David Gandler claims the companies “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.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
