New York judge orders preliminary hearing for Venu Sports streaming lawsuit on September 12, jury trial set for late February 2025

Erik Gruenwedel

26 August 2024

The judge overseeing Fubo’s antitrust lawsuit against Venu Sports – the halted live sports streaming joint venture app between Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox Corp. and Disney that was originally scheduled to launch later this month – has scheduled a pre-trial court date for all parties on Sept. 12.

U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett, who 10 days ago granted Fubo a preliminary injunction to delay the launch of the Venu Sports app, which costs $42.99 a month, ordered on Aug. 26 that attorneys for all parties gather next month at the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse in New York to discuss the joint venture’s motion to dismiss, discovery issues and the expected length of a jury trial on all issues in the case, as well as whether the parties are willing to waive a motion for summary judgment in order to hold a trial in early 2025.

“The legal advisers should meet prior to the conference, consult, and attempt to reach consensus,” Garnett wrote in her motion.

Fubo argues that the new joint venture poses an unfair business threat to its online sports platform, which has 1.5 million subscribers who pay to watch live sports through the defendants’ channels.

For WBD, Fox and Disney, failure to dismiss the lawsuit, coupled with a February court date, would be a major blow and would thwart their plans to get the streaming service up and running in time for the college and NFL football seasons.

Last week (August 23), the defendants attempted to speed up the proceedings, citing financial concerns and “numerous legal errors” in the judge’s temporary injunction.

WBD, Fox and Disney say they are losing “tens of millions of dollars” they invested in a start-up company and dozens of employees hired for Venu are in limbo.

“Consumers are being denied access to the innovative new product that would have created more competition in the market,” the complaint states.

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