Peter Distad Has Been Named CEO of the Disney, Fox, Warner Bros. Sports Joint Venture
The new joint venture between The Walt Disney Company, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery has finally found its leader.
Peter Distad will be charged with bringing the still unnamed new sports streaming service to life. The new joint venture will look to provide sports fans with an alternative to both traditional cable and bulkier streaming services like Fubo and YouTube TV.
Photo: Variety
“Pete is an accomplished innovator and leader who has extensive experience with launching and growing new video services,” the venture’s three backers said in a prepared statement. “We are confident he and his team will build an extremely compelling, fan-focused product for our target market.”
Didad Will Report to a Board of Directors
Distad will report to a board of directors comprised of representatives selected by each of the three partners. He will be based in Los Angeles.
Photo: Disney
“This is an incredible opportunity to build and grow a differentiated product that will serve passionate sports fans in the US outside of the traditional pay TV bundle,” Distad said in a statement. “I’m excited to be able to pull together the industry-leading sports content portfolios from these three companies to deliver a new best-in-class service.”
Reactions to the New Joint Venture
Since its launch, the sports-centric joint venture between Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. has piqued the interest of fans and drawn the ire of competitors.
Both Paramount and Charter Communications have publically stated that they believe there are too many holes in the joint venture programming to provide what sports fans want.
Disney/Fox/Comcast/Ringer illustration
Fubo, meanwhile, has publically attacked the venture and its three backers as a “sports cartel.”
“Their proposed venture is, we believe, just the latest example of this sports cartel’s attempt to block and steal Fubo’s vision of what a sports-streaming bundle should look like, resulting in billions of dollars in damages to our business,” Fubo CEO David Gandler said.
Photo: Deadline
The next question for Distad will be the price point for the new streaming service. Only after that is revealed will we have a real feel for how big of a player the new joint venture will be in streaming.
