How the future of sports streaming died

The Vergecast

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Tech News, Technology

4.4 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2025

⏱️ 93 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

First in this episode, a quick update on the TikTok ban (which didn't turn out to be much of a ban at all.) Then, Sportico's Jacob Feldman joins the show to talk about Venu, the much-hyped streaming service that planned to bring all sports into a single platform — and never even managed to launch. After that, The Verge's Kevin Nguyen tells us how to read more books this year, and how to turn all your aimless scrolling time into more productive reading time. Finally, we answer a question on the Vergecast Hotline about audio sources on your phone, and why you can't listen to a thousand things at once. Further reading: TikTok ban: all the news on the app’s shutdown and return in the US TikTok is back, but where are Marvel Snap, CapCut, and Lemon8? Trump touts his plan to save TikTok during his victory rally TikTok isn’t back in the App Store yet Bluesky and X launch new video feeds amid TikTok uncertainties The new ‘Hulu for Sports’ streaming service has a name: Venu Sports Venu Sports shuts down before it ever launches From Sportico: YouTube TV vs. Fubo Sports Bundle Could Be Next Streaming Fight The Boox Palma is an amazing gadget I didn’t even know I wanted From GQ: How to Read a Whole Damn Book Every Week Email us at [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of Qualified Divesture.
0:07.6	I'm your friend David Pierce, and it has been a wild weekend here in the United States.
0:13.2	We kept a lot of this episode sort of fluid until the very last minute, wanting to see what
0:18.2	happened with the TikTok ban and with President Trump's
0:21.5	inauguration. There's just a lot going on kind of minute to minute right now. We've covered a lot
0:26.4	of this in the run-up to it, but a lot happened kind of in the span of 36 hours.
0:32.5	Or did anything happen in the course of 36 hours. So let me just level set where we are with
0:38.4	TikTok kind of right this minute. TikTok went into essentially darkness on Saturday night into
0:46.5	Sunday when the ban took effect. That didn't have to happen. The rules around banning TikTok
0:51.9	didn't necessarily mean that TikTok had to just shut off in the U.S. at midnight on Saturday night.
0:58.0	But that's what TikTok did pretty performatively, I would say.
1:01.9	The company put up a message basically saying, we think President Trump is going to save us.
1:06.9	It's all just kind of naked political maneuvering.
1:09.1	Like, let's just call this what it is that is pure politicking.
1:12.6	But anyway, TikTok gone for a little while and then came back in a certain way.
1:18.4	It's actually still not available, at least as I'm checking right now, midday Monday,
1:23.3	on either the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
1:26.8	But you can go to TikTok.com and watch TikToks.
1:30.9	And essentially what it appears we've seen is Oracle and Akamai, which are two of the
1:35.5	companies that host TikTok in the United States, basically seem to believe that whatever
1:40.5	President Trump is going to do, it's not going to come back on them negatively.
1:44.7	It's a risk to keep TikTok live right now because TikTok has technically been in the United
	...

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