The Collapse of Venu Sports: A Highlight on the General Unaffordability of Legal Services

By: Joe Putter*                                                                                    Posted: 2/18/2025

The collapse of the Venu Sports streaming service has rendered moot a public debate surrounding the potentially monopolistic nature of the business venture.[1]  These debates, however, largely missed the reason of the collapse by focusing on the antitrust perspective.[2]  Venu Sports was not broken up by the government; rather, it was the relentless lawsuit by FuboTV, and the threat of future lawsuits against it by Dish and DirectTV, that caused the joint project to be terminated for financial reasons.[3]  As such, this case serves as a stark reminder of the darker side of litigation: its unaffordability, and how its expensive nature denies people access to justice.[4]

Timeline of Venu Sports and the Litigation Against It

Venu Sports was a proposed joint venture between Fox Sports, Disney, and Warner Brothers, three of the biggest names in entertainment.[5]  Venu Sports promised to provide sports lovers with a place to access each and every sports game on air on a single, reasonably priced service; quite the attractive offer for many sports fans.[6]  This would be immensely popular, Venu Sports claimed, among two groups of people: people who had high-priced, all-inclusive services such as cable or YouTubeTV, as well as younger fans who subscribed to multiple services, such as Peacock and Netflix, only to watch sports.[7]  Unfortunately for Venu, shortly after its announcement, it was sued by FuboTV, a streaming service that hosts select sports games on their own platform, who argued the impending sports package would drive all other sports services out of business.[8]  During this first round of litigation, Venu Sports reached a deal with FuboTV, in which Venu Sports’s parent company, Disney, agreed to buy out FuboTV in exchange for FuboTV dropping the lawsuit.[9]  While this paved the way for Venu Sports to proceed, a threat of a second round of lawsuits by DirecTV and Dish emerged, causing the companies behind Venu Sports to scrap the service over the anticipated costs of such litigation.[10]

The Cost of Big Business Litigation

Litigation is a driving force in the U.S. market, contributing to roughly 1.6% of America’s trillion-dollar GDP.[11]  While this number seems small compared to the revenues of America’s largest businesses, the average cost of discovery, one of the first steps in litigation, is several million dollars for the routine big-business case.[12]  This cost is so high, it immediately pushes most small and midsize cases into settlement proceedings, regardless of the merits of the case.[13][13]  Often, these large litigation costs get absorbed and paid by the consumer; many big businesses add a “litigation tax” onto the cost of any and every good or service the corporation sells to lessen the outright cost of future litigation.[14]

Antitrust and Venu’s Collapse

The cost concerns of lawsuits are magnified when a company is sued pursuant to antitrust statutes.[15][15]  First, attorneys’ fees, costs, and damages are automatically tripled per the Clayton Act.[16]  Further, the U.S. government can choose to get itself involved in any antitrust suit, thereby creating substantial costs associated with government intervention that are akin to the costs of a second trial.[17]  Finally, the punitive damages are often enormous compared to ordinary damages, usually due to the tripling of damages and available loss of business claims, resulting in antitrust settlements well in the hundreds of millions of dollars if a party loses.[18]  For example, the National Association of Realtors was forced to settle an antitrust suit alleging they forced high buyer’s and seller’s fees for $418 million dollars.[19]  In another settlement, Under Armour agreed to pay a little less than half of one billion dollars for sales disclosure violations.[20]

Faced with this reality of high antitrust payouts, it is no surprise that Venu Sports would balk at the price tag of antitrust suits after they merely attempted to get their revolutionary idea onto the market.[21]  After all, the whole purpose of the joint venture was to provide a more affordable sports package for fans who only wanted to pay to watch sports games, rather than shows or movies which offered on multiple other streaming services.[22]  The cost of the lawsuits threatened would have nearly exceeded the profits expected by Venu Sports in the first few years, especially the claims threatened by Dish and DirecTV.[23]

Of course, Venu Sports very well could have afforded the high cost of business.[24]  After all, the deal was brokered by three of the largest media companies currently in existence.[25]  The same, however, cannot be said for the everyday person in the U.S.[26]

The Unaffordability of Legal Services Generally

It is hard to overstate how many people and small businesses are denied justice due to a lack of financial resources, both on the plaintiff and defense sides.[27]  It is estimated nearly eighty percent of poor and indigent people cannot receive the legal help they desperately need, and only forty percent of the middle class can.[28]  Additionally and equally as heartbreaking, small and local businesses, accounting for just under twenty percent of U.S. business revenue, bear around fifty percent of all litigation damages.[29]  In fact, the situation surrounding the rising legal costs and many Americans’ inability to afford their day in court is so dire that several scholars are recommending for nonlawyers to handle the legal services that lawyers once did.[30]

Analysis of the Unaffordability Crisis

This widespread inaccessibility of legal support for working class Americans and small businesses is an issue that must be resolved.[31]  While nonlawyer initiatives may prove to place a band aid on the wound, these initiatives focus on the cheapness of the legal services, and seem to miss the fact that true, barred lawyers are better trained, and thus better able to handle all legal needs of a client.[32]  Likewise, these nonlawyer initiatives fail to recognize that some individuals still may be too indigent to afford any legal assistance, nonlawyer or not.[33]  The sad truth is, neither the largest corporations nor the smallest individual can afford these mounting legal bills.[34]

If this issue is not resolved for the corporate entities in America, big businesses might flee to countries with less expensive legal systems, taking their jobs and revenues with them.[35]  Or, as with Venu Sports, businesses may simply abandon good, consumer-need-focused ideas on the grounds that the projected attorney’s fees are too high.[36]  Similarly, if the everyday person’s litigation problem is not fixed, they will never receive the justice they deserve.[37]  While a typical U.S. citizen may not have deep pockets or issues with national implications like Venu Sports did, their issues are arguably more important, as access to an affordable lawyer may provide them long-awaited justice; something that may not be attainable if they represent themselves.[38]

Thankfully, progress is being made on the affordability of legal services.[39]  Firms are increasingly recommending and mandating pro bono hours, and the American Bar Association itself both recommends and attempts to encourage attorneys to provide such public services to indigent populations.[40]  Similarly, states are spearheading efforts to reform the larger litigation expenses such as discovery.[41]  Of the two options regularly recommended, reformation of the litigation process overall seems far less objectionable than mandatory pro bono work requirements.[42]  Additionally, such reforms to the cost of litigation would help the economy by removing the need for the “litigation tax”, thus reducing the cost of putting goods onto market.[43]  This is especially true when looking at antitrust lawsuits, where, for instance, the cost of lawsuits could be reduced dramatically by simply removing the trebling of damages in the Clayton Act.[44]  Finally, lowering the costs of litigation would be relatively attainable, given that lower costs of litigation per case have been achieved in many other legal markets, such as the European Union.[45]  Despite the potential avenues to mitigate it, the issue of monstrous legal costs still remains and will likely persist into the near future, given how it continues to cripple even the largest of companies.[46]

Admittedly, the issue of affordability of legal services is too complex to be resolved in a single blog post or even one thirty to sixty page law review article.[47]  This is an issue that simply requires more time in the limelight and for enough people to take notice and eventually act.[48]  While the Venu Sports collapse is ultimately bad news for sports fans, it gives people a moment to look behind the curtain and see the harsh truth behind litigation in America: it actively disenfranchises everyone, including those with exponential financial resources.[49]

*Staff Writer, Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal, J.D. Candidate, May 2026, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law

[1] See, e.g., Sydney Schwartz, Tuning In: FuboTV Sues Big Name Media Companies Over Sports-centered Joint Venture, Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports L.J. Blog (Mar. 12, 2024), https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/law/academics/sportslaw/commentary/mslj_blog/2024/TuningInFuboTVSuesBigNameMediaCompaniesoversports-centeredJointVenture.html (describing lawsuit faced by Venu Sports over antitrust concerns).

[2] See FuboTV Inc. v. Walt Disney Co., No. 24-CV-01363, 2024 WL 3842116, at *31 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 16, 2024) (establishing preliminary injunction against Venu Sports launch).  Although a preliminary injunction was granted against Venu, with the judge noting it seemed likely Plaintiffs would prevail on the merits, Venu Sports could have still prevailed at trial.  See id. (noting preliminary injunction is only until both companies have had opportunity to fully litigate issue at trial and obtain judgment, whether in their favor or not).  In fact, the main reason a preliminary injunction was granted, the judge noted, was for policy concerns; chiefly, that allowing a monopolistic service to exist, even during the few short years of litigation, would cause irreparable harm by accomplishing the goal of the monopoly to drive others out of business.  See id. at 31 (noting public policy concerns mandated preliminary injunction on present matter due to concern illegal monopoly would cause irreparable harm).

[3] See Richard Deitsch & Andrew Marchand, Venu Sports’ Shuttering, Explained: Why ESPN, Fox, TNT Scrapped Launch of Streaming Service, N.Y. Times (Jan. 10, 2025, 3:38 PM), https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6052214/2025/01/10/venu-sports-discontinued-espn-fox-tnt/ (discussing end of joint venture due to financial implications of numerous lawsuits).

[4] For further discussion of current hefty litigation costs and the impact that rising costs have on people pursuing claims, see infra notes 11–49 and accompanying text.

[5] See Zaheer Kachwala & Dawn Chmielewski, Failure to Launch: Big Media Pulls the Plug on Venu Sports Streamer, Reuters (Jan. 10, 2025, 11:28 AM), https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/disneys-live-sports-joint-venture-venu-sports-be-discontinued-2025-01-10/ (observing Venu Sports was created by merger between top three industry titans).

[6] See Jack Queen, U.S. Judge Delays Launch of Sports Streaming Venture from Disney, Media Giants, Reuters (Aug. 16, 2024, 7:19 PM) (acknowledging expectation of many young subscribers using new streaming service, and acknowledging projections estimated excess of five million users in first year).

[7] See id. (observing Venu Sports’s intention to target younger, streaming audience).

[8] See id. (noting FuboTV sued in February 2024 to block Venu Sports’s launch).

[9] See Kachwala et. al, supra note 5 (acknowledging merger deal Venu Sports struck with FuboTV to end FuboTV’s lawsuit).

[10] See id. (noting Venu Sports deal was scrapped shortly after DirecTV and Dish filed letters to district court judge overseeing FuboTV lawsuit arguing that case should not be dismissed).

[11] See Nicholas Toscano, U.S. Legal System Ranked as Most Expensive in the World, Sterling Analytics (May 30, 2013), https://www.sterlinganalytics.com/u-s-legal-system-ranked-as-most-expensive-in-the-world/#:~:text=A%20recent%20study%20conducted%20by,gross%20domestic%20product%20(GDP) (analyzing study detailing cost of litigation in U.S. compared to other nations).

[12] See, e.g., John H. Beisner, Discovering a Better Way: The Need for Effective Civil Litigation Reform, 60 Duke L.J. 547, 566 (2010) (noting discovery costs of $2.5–3 million for large corporations is routine).

[13] See id. at 567 (observing discovery costs alone often “dominate the underlying stakes in dispute”).

[14] See id. at 575 (estimating litigation tax at two percent of consumer prices); see also Gustafson v. Springfield Armory, Inc., 282 A.3d 739, 752 (Pa. Super. 2022) (noting prospect of unmeritorious litigation results in greatly increased prices in firearm industry compared to what their costs could be).

[15] See Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 161 (1974) (noting antitrust suits are so much more expensive than traditional lawsuits, so plaintiffs often must sue in class-action or not sue at all).

[16] See 15 U.S.C. § 15(a) (authorizing “threefold” damages, costs, and attorneys’ fees for violations of Sherman Act).

[17] See, e.g., Mass. Sch. of L. at Andover, Inc. v. United States, 118 F.3d 776, 782–83 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (noting that U.S. government may easily intervene in private antitrust actions, but bar is much higher for private actors to intervene in antitrust actions brought by government).

[18] See Herbert J. Hovenkamp, A Primer on Antitrust Damages, U. Iowa Legal Stud. Rsch. Paper 1, 39, 43 (Feb. 2011) (noting variety of cases easily exceeding millions of dollars’ worth of damages in antitrust claims).

[19] See Mike Scarcella, U.S. Realtor Group’s $418 Million Antitrust Settlement Wins Tentative Approval, Reuters (Apr. 23, 2024, 2:07 PM), https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-realtor-groups-418-million-antitrust-settlement-wins-tentative-approval-2024-04-23/ (detailing deal that was ultimately approved by federal judge).

[20] See Reuters, Under Armour to Pay $434 Million to Settle Lawsuits Over Sales Disclosures, Reuters (June 21, 2024, 7:22 PM), https://www.reuters.com/legal/under-armour-pay-434-million-settle-2017-lawsuit-2024-06-21/ (detailing settlement ultimately reached by Under Armour).

[21] See Brian Koenig, ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Abruptly Scrap Sports Streaming JV, Law360 (Jan. 10, 2025, 1:05 PM), https://www.law360.com/articles/2282323 (observing that business concerns, not legal pushback, defeated joint venture).

[22] See Kachwala et al., supra note 5 (observing bundle aimed to gain customers from those who never subscribed to cable or switched to streaming on multiple services).

[23]  See Reuters, DirecTV to Offer Sports Streaming Bundle to Tap Younger Audience, Reuters (Jan. 14, 2025, 9:56 AM), https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/directv-offer-sports-streaming-bundle-tap-younger-audience-2025-01-14/ (describing new potential sports bundle by DirecTV).  Dish and DirecTV seem to have wished to engage in this litigation to offer their own versions of Venu Sports, offering a weaker package with a slightly higher price.  Compare id. (announcing new sports bundle created by DirecTV) with Olivia Coryell,

Venu Sports Introduced as Name for Forthcoming Sports Streaming Service, ESPN (May 16, 2024), https://espnpressroom.com/us/press-releases/2024/05/venu-sports-introduced-as-name-for-forthcoming-sports-streaming-service/ (announcing new sports only streaming service dubbed Venu Sports).

[24] See Koenig, supra note 21 (noting that size of industry giants suggests they could have survived financial costs of litigation).

[25] See Deitsch, supra note 3 (observing behemoth size of venturing corporations).

[26] For further discussion of the unaffordability of legal services for the common individual, see infra notes 27–49 and accompanying text.

[27] See, e.g., Emery G. Lee III, Law Without Lawyers: Access to Civil Justice and the Cost of Legal Services, 69 U. Miami L. Rev. 499, 511–12 (2015) (noting how hard it is to receive estimates of people who could not afford legal services because many people do not even try to file lawsuits when in poverty).

[28] See Stan Keillor, James H. Cohen & Mercy Changwesha, The Inevitable, if Untrumpeted, March Toward "Civil Gideon", 64 Syracuse L. Rev. 469, 469–70 (2014) (observing mass unaffordability of legal services among non-wealthy individuals).

[29] See David McKnight & Paul Hinton, Tort Costs for Small Businesses, U.S. Chamber of Com. 3 (Dec. 2023), https://instituteforlegalreform.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Tort-Costs-for-Small-Businesses-12.5.23.pdf (observing trend of increasing tort liability for small businesses).

[30] See Richard Zorza & David Udell, New Roles for Non-Lawyers to Increase Access to Justice, 41 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1259, 1267–68 (2014) (noting “overwhelming need” for nonlawyers to provide legal aid due to its general unaffordability).  Although the practice of law by nonlawyers is historically illegal, many scholars are recommending changes to such a prohibition, to support the ongoing crisis regarding people not receiving lawyers when they need it most.  These scholars recommend using paralegals and other support staff to handle issues such as pleadings or document preparation; assistance with these simpler tasks is usually what the vast majority of people who cannot afford lawyers need.  See id. at 1271–79 (describing how and why nonlawyers should be allowed to practice law despite of previous blanket restriction against it).

[31] See, e.g., Lee, supra note 27, at 500–02 (noting significant lack of funding plays role in inability to access justice system for poor and indigent people).

[32] See Zorza et al., supra note 30, at 1267–68 (acknowledging that nonlawyers often do not have same practice experience as lawyers and therefore require constant supervision).  Nonlawyers practicing law may also negatively affect their clients because of their lack of formalized training; when complex issues arise, this lack of training may come back to hurt the client, resulting in guilty verdicts or adverse judgments.  See, e.g., Harkness v. Unemployment Comp. Bd. of Rev., 920 A.2d 162, 169–70 (Pa. 2007) (noting nonlawyers may represent persons in unemployment compensation hearings only because such hearings are informal, simple, and do not concern significant amounts of money).

[33] See Zorza et al., supra note 30, at 1268 (observing that many poor or indigent people cannot afford legal services in any context).

[34] Compare Koenig, supra note 21 (detailing collapse of Venu Sports venture), with McKnight, supra note 29, at 4–9 (detailing unaffordability of tort actions against small business).

[35] See Lee, supra note 27, at 510–12 (observing big business’s legal fees equal billions of their trillions in revenue).

[36] Cf. Koenig, supra note 21 (depicting abandonment of new streaming promise due to antitrust lawsuits).

[37] See Lee, supra note 27, at 506–11 (observing high percentage of indigent people that proceed pro se because they are unable to afford lawyers).

[38] See id. at 503–04 (noting individuals with low-income cases are rarely able to retain lawyers, regardless of contingency fee arrangements).

[39] For further discussion of the progress made towards making legal services more affordable, see infra notes 40–46 and accompanying text.

[40] See ABA Free Legal Answers Surpasses 400k Inquiries, Nearly 100,000 Pro Bono Hours Served, Am. Bar Ass’n (Jan. 13, 2025), https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2025/01/aba-free-legal-answers-400k/ (noting existence of permanent committee for pro bono service and use of such program); see also Bar Pre-Admission Pro Bono, Am. Bar. Ass’n, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/probono_public_service/policy/bar_pre_admission_pro_bono/ (last visited Feb. 2, 2025) (noting New York became first state to formally require mandatory pro bono hours before bar admission).

[41] See Seth Endo, Discovery Hydraulics, 52 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1317, 1346 (2019) (noting Utah reformed discovery process by limiting requests for production proportionally to size of case).

[42] See Roger C. Cramton, Mandatory Pro Bono, 19 Hofstra L. Rev. 1113, 1127–30 (1991) (acknowledging heavy opposition to mandatory pro bono on grounds it produces lower quality work due to its forced nature and is antithetical to free market by preventing lawyers from being able to pick and choose their cases).

[43] See Beisner, supra note 12, at 574–75 (noting if abuse of discovery and litigation process in general would stop, cost of goods would be reduced significantly across board in United States).

[44] Cf. 15 U.S.C. § 15(a) (increasing damages awarded against companies sued in antitrust by threefold).  In fact, scholars have noted that the origin of the trebling of damages for antitrust in particular is unclear and seems to be a random multiplier that Congress decided sounded appropriate for deterrence purposes, rather than a calculated multiplier that would balance the interests of both the companies and the public.  See Edward D. Cavanagh, Detrebling Antitrust Damages: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?, 61 Tul. L. Rev. 777, 782–83 (1987) (noting ambiguous origins of trebling of antitrust damages).

[45] See Toscano, supra note 11 (noting United States, despite less regulation, has far higher cost of litigation than European countries).

[46] See Deitsch, supra note 3 (noting how prospective litigation ultimately ended Venu Sports deal even though Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros all believed they would prevail on merits).

[47] See Zorza et. al, supra note 30, at 1265–66 (acknowledging many commissions on topic that have failed to remedy unaffordability crisis).

[48] See Keillor et al., supra note 28, at 487 (hoping more lawyers recognize how essential civil right to counsel is for indigent citizens).

[49] See id. at 471–72 (noting inaccessibility of lawyers for working class citizens); see also Deitsch, supra note 3 (noting that even Venu Sports couldn’t afford to fend off lawsuits).