Though Max has always said that it planned to charge more for access to its CNN and Bleacher Report Sports add-ons, the price hikes are coming in a roundabout way targeted at subscribers to the streamer’s cheapest tier.
Max announced today that it no longer intends to charge subscribers to its Standard ($16.99/month or $169.99/year) and Premium ($20.99/month or $209.99/year) tiers an extra $9.99 a month for CNN Max and Bleacher Reports Sports. The add-ons will be removed from Max’s ad-supported tier ($9.99/month or $99.99/year) beginning on March 30th, however, meaning that subscribers will have to move up to more expensive tiers should they want to keep watching live sports and news.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Max’s decision reads very much like a sign of the streamer prioritizing live sports as part of its bundling strategy and responding to competitors like Peacock and Netflix getting more serious about live sports programming of their own. In a statement about the pivot, WBD head of global streaming and games JB Perrette said that Max’s new plan of action came after a year of assessing how users were engaging with sports content on the platform.
“We believe that the best place for that content for now is within the Standard and Premium tiers,” Perrette said. “This update ensures that subscribers can continue to enjoy that coveted access within Max, while also enabling ongoing investment in our premium sports and news portfolio.”