CEO David Ellison says “we believe in sports” but every future rights deal must “earn its place” as Skydance targets at least $6bn in cost savings.
Skydance will launch a combined Paramount+ and HBO Max subscription in early 2027, bringing CBS Sports and TNT Sports content together in one streaming offer for the first time since the two companies merged.
The company confirmed the timing in its third-quarter shareholder letter on9 November, five weeks after completing its $110bn acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Pricing, a name and launch markets have not been disclosed, with details due “in the coming months,” the letter said.
Chairman and CEO David Ellison said the bundle is a step towards merging the two services outright. “Bundling is our first step towards unifying the two services,” Ellison said on the earnings call. “It lets us start capturing the consumer and monetisation benefits ahead of a fully unified product.”
Skydance aims to run both services on one technology platform within a year of closing. That would be faster than the roughly 18 months it took to move Pluto TV onto Paramount+.
Paramount+ goes into the bundle after 21% revenue growth in the third quarter, when its subscriber base reached 82.2 million. Those results cover Paramount only, because the WBD deal closed after the quarter ended.
Sport across both Skydance services
Ellison named sport alongside entertainment and news as the bundle’s selling points, citing “marquee sports like the NFL, UFC, Champions League, and all of March Madness.”
Combining CBS Sports and TNT Sports gives Skydance more than three dozen premium sports agreements, he said.
Insider Sport valued the combined sports rights portfolio of Paramount and WBD at $6.5bn a year when it came together in October.
Advertising is one area in particular where Skydance believes the scale of the merger can pay dividends.
Sports advertising commitments for seasons running into 2027 are up more than 20% year-on-year, according to the letter. The letter also said advertisers can now buy across broadcast, cable and streaming through one partner.
NFL games on CBS averaged 19.6 million viewers through Week 8, up 5% on last season’s record pace.
TKO Group Holdings is already discussing how the UFC could use the enlarged group. Paramount+ holds US rights to the promotion under a seven-year, $7.7bn agreement, which Paramount extended to Latin America and Australia. The cost of that programming weighed on the direct-to-consumer division’s third-quarter adjusted EBITDA of $225m, a 9% margin.
TKO President Mark Shapiro said last week the talks cover every Skydance platform. “We will be maximising HBO, TNT, Paramount+, CBS, all in the name of expanding eyeballs, expanding viewership, growing audience, and increasing engagement.”
Skydance has not said whether the bundle will launch outside the US. In the UK, HBO Max became the streaming home of TNT Sports on 26 March, carrying its Premier League and Champions League coverage.
Third-party deals are also unresolved, because HBO Max is sold in a US bundle with Disney+ and Hulu. Ellison said Skydance sees value in being “a predominantly direct business” while choosing where partners add reach.
