Hulu, Fubo, Venu, Oh My!

PRESENTED BY REX SHARES

Happy Tuesday, FutureParty fam. Did you know that today is officially “I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore” Day? We’re not kidding; this is apparently a real holiday. In celebration, it only feels right to take the rest of the day off because we’re certainly not going to take it (it being “meetings,” “projects,” and “deadlines”) anymore. Just be forewarned, your boss probably doesn’t observe this holiday.

DAILY TOP TRENDS

Disney Throws A Bone To Fubo To Clear The Path For Venu

To settle Fubo’s antitrust lawsuit over the creation of the Venu streaming service (a sports-focused joint venture by Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery), Disney is combining its Hulu + Live TV business with Fubo.

The Big Play: Fubo argued that Venu was a monopoly in the sports world that would run it out of business. The monopoly remains, but Fubo doesn’t care anymore now that it has a lifeline… and an opportunity to make a new kind of skinny digital-cable hybrid.

Between the Games: Venu was supposed to launch last fall but was stopped by an injunction after Fubo filed its lawsuit.

Now, the whole case has been settled.

• Fubo dropped its suit after a deal was reached with Disney to merge with its Hulu + Live TV business, which will trade publicly under the FUBO ticker symbol.

• Fubo’s executive leadership will run the company, while Disney gets a 70% ownership stake, injecting $220 million in cash into the balance sheet and providing a $146 million loan next year.

• That immediately makes the business, which will have a combined 6.2 million subscribers, cash-flow positive with $6 billion in revenue.

• Fubo also gets a refreshed carriage agreement with Disney and Fox so that all of its sports channels will get offered through Fubo (which will continue to be offered as an independent platform).

The Future: Investors love this arrangement, popping Fubo’s stock by 200%. With all that money — and the new home on Hulu’s platform — Fubo said it’s ready for its “growth” stage, including an international expansion and some fresh dealmaking. For Venu, it clears the way for its big debut (as long as it jumps all the usual regulatory hurdles). We wouldn’t be surprised if it launched alongside the NBA playoffs.

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Memecoins Want Your Attention… And Wallet

Memecoins — the crypto offerings that are simply pure financial speculation masked as a joke — are set to have their heyday this year as digital gambling isn’t just accepted but encouraged.

The Big Bet: The crypto industry is at a crossroads. While the new presidential administration supports the technology, and bitcoin excites investors by surpassing $100,000, memecoins risk tarnishing crypto’s fragile reputation. Critics argue they reinforce public skepticism, portraying the industry as a haven for scams.

Between the Jokes: Memecoins are the fintech equivalent of randomly going viral — it’s impossible to predict, ephemeral, and over in a flash.

• The availability of memecoins soared last year after a platform called Pump.fun made minting them cheap and easy.

• Since then, 4.7 million memecoins have been made, including from celebrities like Iggy Azalea and Jason Derulo, who market them through endless memes of themselves.

• The market for memecoins is now worth over $100 billion. What.

Cash Out: VCs, investment firms, and hedge funds have mixed reactions to memecoins. Azeem Khan, cofounder of Morph blockchain and partner at Foresight Ventures, says the “degeneracy” is just beginning. Meanwhile, hedge funds like Pantera Capital and Stratos are investing heavily in the space, hoping one of them becomes the next dogecoin (the granddaddy of memecoins). Either way, some very ambitious (and risky) entrepreneurs could turn to memecoins as a way to raise capital quickly and get a little early marketing done in the process.

DEEP DIVES

• Read: Bloomberg has a wide-ranging interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about everything from the possibility of “superintelligence” to the boardroom politics that led to his brief ouster in 2023.

• Listen: On the heels of his Best Screenplay win at the Golden Globes, it’s a great time to check out this Script Apart chat with Conclave screenwriter Peter Straughan.

• Explore: WSJ details how five companies, including Johnson & Johnson and eBay, are already using AI agents in their operations.

60.7% of you voted Driving in yesterday’s poll: What’s your go-to transportation for concerts or live events?

“And I use valet parking upon arrival.”

“I live near Louisville, KY, and we don’t have a great public transit system in place. I live in the suburbs, so I need to drive in order to get to the venue.”

“I could say rideshare if that includes carpooling.”

“Depends on the venue. As a NYC resident in public transport-deprived deep Brooklyn, getting to Radio City Music Hall is a different ballgame than getting to MetLife.”

“While I still do drive to concerts and sports events, I try my best to take a rideshare.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

QUICK HITS

→ Entertainment / Media

🏆 The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez, Hacks, Shogun, and Baby Reindeer were the big winners at Sunday night’s Golden Globes.

📺 Peacock will start autoplaying live events on its homescreen via a new feature called “Live In Browse.”

💻 Digital entertainment studio Brat TV is acquiring Electric Monster to become ZATV.

→ Technology

🥊 UFC CEO Dana White is joining Meta’s board. Could Zuckerberg competing in the octagon come next?

🤖 Anthropic and music publishers have come to an agreement on how to protect from copyrighted lyrics showing up in Claude’s responses.

🎮 Xbox Cloud Gaming gets a new console — LG TVs.

→ Fashion / E-commerce

👕 L Catterton, the investment firm backed by LVMH, acquired the Japanese clothing brand Kapital.

💄 L’Oréal developed a tabletop device that can analyze customers’ skin and give them product recommendations.

📷 Getty Images and rival Shutterstock may merge to create an image-database giant.