Last week Disney Streaming announced a coup with a deal merging its vMVPD service, Hulu+Live TV with competitor Fubo and acquiring 70% of the combined entity. The combined service will boast over 6 million subscribers, that will bring it within striking distance of YouTube TV’s 8 million subs and allow it to rival YouTube’s annual 1.5 million subscriber growth-trajectory. None of this fixes the underlying pricing conundrum that consumers are willing to pay about $30-40 per month for a sports bundle (survey research) and most of the current services are about $70-80 per month and climbing (up from an average of $35/month just 5 years back). Not to mention that operational cost per subscriber for vMVPD is about $62 per month (using Fubo’s cost of goods divided by its subscriber base). 2025 may very well end up being the year of the “streaming wars” as the cord-cutter exodus accelerates but current vMVPD offerings leave them wanting. Meanwhile, a group of 8 consumer advocacy groups have filed an amicus curiae complaint to the US Court of Appeals, opposing the merger. They say this is an attempt by Disney to monopolize the sports live streaming sector. This could all get very interesting quickly once the new administration is in place and the view they take on antitrust.