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Welcome to Lowpass! I meant to take this week off, but then I stumbled across something Tuesday evening that was just too juicy not to share: A web-based smart TV app for the much-anticipated Venu Sports streaming service.

This week’s Lowpass newsletter is a bit shorter than usual, which is why I decided to take down the paywall and make it available to all subscribers. Enjoy! And if you do, please consider upgrading to support my work.

Scoop: A first look at the upcoming sports streaming service Venu Sports

Venu Sports, the upcoming sports streaming service jointly run by Fox, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, is officially slated to launch this fall, pending regulatory approval. The JV already has a reported 150 people working on the service, with most work being done inside of Fox Corp. for the time being – and their work is intriguing.

I know this because some of that work has essentially been happening in public: The Venu Sports team has been developing a web-based app for a popular smart TV platform, and that app has been left publicly accessible on the web. Months away from launch, it appears to be an early development build that shows a service very much in the making, and doesn’t include any word on the exact launch date, pricing, and other key details.

However, the smart TV app does reveal that Venu intends to offer DVR functionality for live events, multiview functionality to watch more than one game at the same time, and a large library of documentaries, sports-related talk shows, and more. Sports events will be organized by league “hubs,” and there will also be an EPG to access the linear live streams of the TV networks of Venu’s backers, including a number of ESPN and Fox Sports networks.

Venu’s TV app’s home screen launches with a “For You” tab, which is headlined by a row of marquee live events. Underneath that, there’s a row of upcoming “Must Watch” events, complete with an option to record individual games. Other elements on this page include: