Trial Date Set for October 2025 in Fubo’s Lawsuit Against Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery

A jury trial in Fubo’s antitrust lawsuit against Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery will begin on Oct. 6, 2025, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett issued an order setting a timeline for the case, including several key dates leading up to the hearing for motions and discovery. While some changes to the schedule could be made during the process, Garnett wrote that “in particular, the trial start date should be treated as permanent.”

Fubo, a pay-TV provider with nearly 1.5 million subscribers, filed the lawsuit last February after the media companies announced they had formed a streaming joint venture, Venu Sports. The service, which offers linear streaming of 15 sports-focused networks, was set to launch last month at a price of $43 per month, significantly lower than what full-fledged providers like Fubo charge. The company has blasted Venu as a monopolistic enterprise, and in a stunning ruling last month, Garnett agreed. She granted the company’s request for a preliminary injunction that would block Venu from launching until the appeal is resolved.

The trial date is closer to Fubo’s preferred date than the defendants’, who suggested February 2026. “With Venu being on the sidelines for now, there’s no need to rush,” Fox attorney Andrew Levander told Garnett during a pretrial conference in Manhattan on Thursday morning. Disney attorney Antony Ryan argued that a February 2026 trial would be an “accelerated timeline” by antitrust standards.

Levander noted that there will be a “huge amount” of discovery material to analyze in the coming months. Long-secret details of shipping negotiations — the lucrative but highly secret underpinnings of the modern media business — are expected to be revealed as part of the discovery, both sides have acknowledged.

The case has drawn scrutiny in both sports and media circles, not only because of its rare window into the inner workings of pay TV but also because of related developments in recent months as traditional media outlets come to terms with streaming. Disney has been in an ongoing bandwidth dispute with DirecTV since Sept. 1, and the distributor has cited Venu as a reason Disney won’t agree to a fair deal. Disney-owned ESPN, meanwhile, says it plans to launch its own standalone streaming service in less than a year. And WBD lost its rights to the NBA through the 2025-26 season over the summer, changing what Venu would bring to the table.

Garnett noted two factors that could potentially speed up the trial schedule. One would be if the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Venu JV partners and lifted its preliminary injunction, allowing Venu to proceed. The other would be if the judge decided to grant any upcoming motions to dismiss any of the allegations in Fubo’s complaint, thereby simplifying the case.

In the full lawsuit, Fubo alleged multiple antitrust violations, attacking the approach to distribution negotiations of three of Venu’s partners. Their practices raised prices and created a business disadvantage for Fubo, the company argued, by forcing it to pay to carry less-watched networks in exchange for access to more popular ones. Fubo also claims that it tried to launch a sports-only service but was rebuffed by the same companies that worked with Venu.

Garnett said the trial would likely last about a month.

During a pretrial conference, the judge floated the possibility of a “splintered” trial, in which the claims underlying Fubo’s lawsuit would be tried separately because they rely on different legal concepts and precedents. While the defense expressed some support for that scheme, Fubo’s attorney, Mark Hansen, opposed it. “We believe that a split trial is a path to inefficiency and delay,” he said.