Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) launched a new sports tier on its Max service on Thursday as the media company tries to lure more users to its flagship platform in a hotly competitive environment for streaming.
Max's new "Bleacher Report" add-on includes access to live games from the MLB, NHL, and NBA, in addition to other major sporting events like March Madness. Subscribers will also be able to access TNT's popular "Inside the NBA" studio program along with select international games.
The package, which will be available for free until Feb. 29, 2024, will eventually cost Max subscribers an additional $9.99 a month.
"This will mark the first time that fans will have access on streaming platforms, in addition to linear, to WBD’s portfolio of premium live sports content, including more than 300 live games each year," the company said in a press release prior to the tier's debut.
The company has also leaned on other types of live events like news. CNN Max, a 24/7 streaming news offering, launched as part of an open beta on Max at the end of September.
"We've always thought that news would be a big part of Max. Sports as well," Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich previously told Yahoo Finance. She explained live content creates various levels of "stickiness" that drives streaming consumption and keep users locked into the ecosystem.
The launch comes as the company tries to make its streaming business more profitable. Marketing and launch costs related to Max, which debuted at the end of May, propelled a direct-to-consumer loss of $3 million in WBD's second quarter. That was a significant improvement compared to the $558 million loss in the year-ago period. Streaming losses reversed in the first quarter.
On the company's earnings call, CEO David Zaslav said that "news and sports are important, they're differentiators, they're compelling, and they make these platforms come alive."
The company also said then that it saw elevated churn following the debut of its Max streaming service, as customers with overlapping subscriptions to both Max and Discovery+ shed extra accounts.
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at [email protected].
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