Unbundling the new ESPN-Fox Sports-Warner Bros. Discovery streaming bundle plan

If you are confused about what to make of Tuesday’s news that ESPN, Fox Sports and TNT Sports are combining to create a sports streaming bundle, don’t feel bad.

The entire sports media industry is uncertain how exactly this historic, complex undertaking will look come autumn, when the service is supposed to launch.

For now, it has no CEO, no name and, most importantly, no announced price.

But we do know this: It was yet another milestone in the rapid move away from the traditional pay TV bundle and toward streaming.

This is big news involving big media players, as the parent companies of the three sports units, Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, made clear simply with the executives they chose to quote in the news release: Disney CEO Bob Iger (who is from Oceanside), Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch (who is not from Oceanside) and WBD CEO David Zaslav.

The three companies each will own a third of the new operation, even though presumably ESPN will get the largest share of revenue given that it has the largest share of programming.

But you might have noticed this plan does not include everything you might want as a sports fan, including streaming content from NBC, CBS and Amazon Prime Video.

So think of it more as evolution than revolution. In the short term, many folks who still are happy with their cable bundles will keep them.

This is more aimed at current cord-cutters or those contemplating that move to keep them within the live sports ecosystem.

But that itself is another dagger to the heart of the cable bundle, which for years has been held together largely by sports that one cannot get anywhere else.

That is rapidly changing. Soon, instead of subscribing to ESPN+ for some sports programming, you will be able to get all of ESPN’s stuff through streaming.

What will this new bundle cost? Let’s say it will be in the $40-50 range. For an avid sports fan with no other interests, that could well be worth it.

But until streaming fully recreates the programming bundles that now do a good job serving families with diverse interests, it will be a tough sell for many.

Here is a key point, one that has been a flashing red warning sign since technology allowed cord-cutting to take hold in recent years:

For decades, non-sports fans have been subsidizing sports fans by paying for expensive channels they never watch, from ESPN nationally to the likes YES, SNY and MSG locally.

Now, sports fans are going to have to pay their own way as non-sports fans peel off. So however this new bundling world takes shape, as long as there are separate sports offerings such as the one announced on Tuesday, they are going to come at a higher cost than in the past.

That is the only way to maintain the economics of a sports industry in which viewers pay money through a series of middlemen that eventually finds its way into the hands of owners and players.

And remember: This is not just about people who care nothing about sports. There also are tens of millions of casual sports fans who will not pay for the privilege.

Might they enjoy an occasional college basketball or “Monday Night Football” game on ESPN? Absolutely. Can many of them easily live without ESPN? Absolutely.

The question for media companies is exactly how many fans are avid enough to pay to watch everything, the way most of us have for the past 40 years.

So as big as Tuesday’s news was, it was just another step into a brave new world, one whose nuances will play out over time.

The bad news is that you will have to pay more than ever if you want to see everything in sports. The good news is that you will have more options than ever to pick and choose – or to bow out altogether.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.