When Will DIRECTV Offer All-Sports Bundles As Promised?

By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man – Follow me on X.
Former editor of Satellite DIRECT magazine. Reported on DIRECTV for more than 30 years.

TV Answer Man, I and a lot of people have been excited about DIRECTV’s smaller channel bundles since it was announced back in (September). Do you have any information about when we will be able to get the smaller bundles (such as all sports)? – Jeff, Mason City, Iowa.

Jeff, after a 13-day channel blackout, DIRECTV and Disney last September announced they had signed a new carriage agreement that would give DIRECTV’s “customers the ability to tailor their video experience through more flexible options.  (The agreement offers the) opportunity to offer multiple genre-specific options — sports, entertainment, kids & family — inclusive of Disney’s linear networks along with Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.”

Update: DIRECTV Launches All-Sports Plan For $70 a Month

Based on that statement, many DIRECTV subscribers believed that their TV provider would soon offer smaller genre-specific bundles for prices lower than current programming plans with more channels. I know this is true because I received roughly a dozen e-mails last September from excited readers asking how they could order the new genre-specific plans.

But I warned then in this article that DIRECTV would not offer those plans anytime soon, if ever. Why?

DIRECTV only signed a ‘flexible’ packaging deal with Disney. Not Fox or any other company that owned sports channels. The same was true for kids’ channels or any other genre. DIRECTV needed to get ‘flexible packaging’ agreements with the owners of the other channels as well, or at least the most popular ones.

I explained that it could take months or even years before that happened. Consequently, I argued that subscribers should not expect those flexible plans in 2024 or even in early 2025.

Now that we are four months beyond the DIRECTV-Disney agreement, it seems clear that I was right. DIRECTV has not changed its bundle plans nor offered any timetable for when it might.

One thing has changed, however.

Disney just announced it would merge its Hulu Live streaming service with another live streamer, Fubo. The deal, Fubo said, would enable it to offer a Broadcast and Sports plan consisting of local channels and ESPN’s suite of sports networks. However, Fubo also did not provide a timetable for when that might occur so we are left to wonder if Fubo is in the same boat as DIRECTV.

(Disney struck a similar deal with Charter’s Spectrum TV in September 2023 with the cable op saying afterwards that it would enable it to basically reinvent the programming bundle. However, 16 months later, Charter has been able to offer Disney’s premium plans, such as ESPN+, for free in select bundled packages. But the basic bundles? They have basically stayed the same.)

If Fubo does offer an ESPN-centric sports bundle with local channels in the near future, we could see DIRECTV do that as well. But as of now, it’s business as usual.

Update: DIRECTV Launches All-Sports Plan For $70 a Month

Jeff, hope that helps. Happy viewing and stay safe!

Have a question about a favorite show or new streaming product? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.

The TV Answer Man is veteran journalist Phillip Swann who has covered television for more than three decades. He will report on the latest news and answer your questions regarding new devices and services that are changing the way you watch television. See the bio for Phillip Swann here.