This week, Pete Distad was announced as CEO of the new sports streaming platform that is being created as a joint venture with support from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Distad’s previous experience includes a decade at Apple TV+ as their head of business, operations, and global distribution of sports.
In that position, Distad oversaw a deal between Apple and Major League Soccer (MLS) to create MLS Season Pass, which gave Apple TV+ users access to all MLS games. Before Apple, Distad was one of the founding executives at Hulu from 2007-2013. His background in launching Hulu and managing sports deals at Apple made him an ideal candidate to head the launch of this new streaming service.
The service will roll up sports programming from ESPN, ESPN+, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV, as well as the ABC network. The price point for subscribers has yet to be determined but will most likely settle in at $35-$50 per month. A somewhat comparable service is YouTube TV, which costs $72.99 per month and is positioned as a replacement for traditional cable. The price of the new sports-focused service will need to be significantly lower, to hit a stated goal of having 5 million subscribers within five years of its launch.