Warner Bros. Discovery will continue to make Max‘s Bleacher Report live sports tier free to subscribers for several more months, citing “tech integrations” for a months-long delay before it starts charging for the programming add-on.
Launched last October, WBD initially offered the Bleacher Report (B/R) Sports Add-On Max subscribers for a promotional period. The plan was to charge Max customers $9.99 per month extra starting March 1 for the sports package — in time for the NCAA’s March Madness men’s basketball tournament — but now the company is pushing that back by several months to finish working on technical integrations. The company does not have an expected date for when it will begin charging for the B/R Sports Add-On on Max.
“The B/R Sports Add-On will continue to be made available to Max subscribers on us for a few more months as we finalize some tech integrations that will ensure a more seamless customer experience with our platform partners,” a WBD spokesperson said in a statement. “We’ve seen great engagement with live sports on Max so far and look forward to continuing to delight fans with upcoming premium sports events like March Madness, the NBA and NHL.”
The B/R Sports Add-On features sports events from MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA Men’s March Madness, U.S. Soccer events and more, including all live games airing on a Warner Bros. Discovery linear network (TNT, TBS or truTV). All told, it’s slated to feature more than 300 live U.S. and international sports events throughout the year, alongside Bleacher Report live video content and a lineup of complementary programming.
JB Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery’s global streaming and games CEO and president, previously said that the U.S. is the only market in the world where premium live sport programming is not sold in separate tiers and are instead “jammed into the entertainment bundle.”
“We look at the model in streaming and say, now’s the time to actually reset that model,” Perrette said at Variety‘s Entertainment & Technology Summit in September 2023. “Rather than, like we see some of our peers giving it away for free — what seems like giving it away for free, because they’re just giving it for no additional costs in the entertainment price — we think it has to be priced separately.”
The news about the B/R Sports Add-On delay was first reported by Deadline.
Pictured above: The Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry drives past Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets on Dec. 25, 2023, in Denver.
