For almost a year, the future of the world’s most popular web browser has been a question mark. After the United States declared Google an illegal monopoly in online search, federal prosecutors put forth a forced divestment of Chrome as one possible legal remedy. The case is now resolved, pending appeal, and Google won’t have to sell Chrome. (That rush of wind you just felt is a giant sigh of relief from Google’s C-suite.) Instead, Google will have to provide search index data and amalgamated user metrics to at least some of its competitors. Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the government prosecutors couldn’t prove that Google’s dominance in the browser space—just under 70 percent of market share, at the time of writing—was essential to its illegal monopoly in search, as Ars Technica reports. Ditto for Google’s operation of the Android mobile operating system, which it will also get to keep. And so the biggest shakeup in online power in decades won’t happen, at least not now. Things were starting to look interesting, too. OpenAI, the current juggernaut of the “AI” space thanks to ChatGPT, stated an interest in buying Google’s browser. Perplexity, makers of a competing “AI” search engine, made a public declaration of intent to buy Chrome if it became available, offering about $35 billion (which, incidentally, is about double the evaluation of the company, which had only 52 employees in 2024). So did Yahoo, which, yes, still exists as more than a sports betting outlet. Hey, I’m as shocked as you are. Plenty of Chrome fans would be happy enough to see Google retain control of the iconic browser. But arguably, the bigger change would have been under the hood. If Google can’t flex its dominance with Chrome, what happens to Chromium, the Google-funded open-source project that underpins both the browser and ChromeOS operating system powering Chromebook laptops? What happens to all the browsers that also rely on Chromium, and by extension Google? That includes Microsoft’s revamped Edge, Opera, Brave, and my own browser bestie Vivaldi. The only major browsers left that don’t heavily rely on Chromium are Apple’s Safari and Firefox, the lone semi-independent holdout. Google could still appeal this ruling, and previously said it would after it was declared a monopoly. But I’m wondering if it’ll carry through with that plan. Sharing search data with competitors is a loss for the company—especially as “AI” alternatives nip at the heels of its decades-long search engine dominance—but that dominance isn’t going anywhere for the time being. Mehta’s ruling is essentially a slap on the wrist at the level of power and money at which Google operates, a declaration that if you have a tech monopoly, you get to keep it. Ma Bell is rolling in its grave. Google just dodged the biggest bullet in its corporate history. I wonder how eager it is to try for another shot. Read...

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At the AFL Awards night, Bailey Smith revealed he voluntarily spent a month in a psychiatric ward while recovering from a serious knee injury, earning a powerful standing ovation for his candour and high praise from the Australian sports community. Read...

Test your sporting knowledge with our weekly quiz on current sports events. Read...

Sports Interactive boss Miles Jacobson reveals the reasons for cancelling FM25, and what fans can expect from the new game. Read...

Harper Moyski, 10, and Fletcher Merkel, 8, were praying when they were gunned down at school on Wednesday. Read...

The pop star and the sports star are to tie the knot and perhaps they should do it right here in Aotearoa. Read...

How do you make something compelling if you already know what happens? Sky`s new football documentary avoids the pitfalls that hold other sports docos back. Read...

The best way to watch Monday Night Football without paying for a full TV package or ESPN subscription could be short-lived if Disney gets its way. Disney is suing Sling TV over its Day Passes, which provide access to Sling’s Orange bundle (including Disney-owned ESPN and more than 30 other channels) for $5, with weekend and weeklong passes also available for $10 and $15 respectively. By comparison, a full month of Sling Orange costs $46, and ESPN’s new streaming service costs $30 per month on its own. With Day Passes, Sling is solving a real problem with sports streaming: Even if you’re only interested in a single game, you must pay for an entire month of service. Programmers like Disney should be embracing this approach to reach audiences who otherwise might not pay anything, but they’re too short-sighted to realize it. Why Sling is right While we all want more flexible options, new standalone offerings from the likes of Fox and Disney’s ESPN are insufficient. Both companies have intentionally set prices high—$30 per month for ESPN, $20 per month for Fox One—hoping to prolong the pay TV model that’s collapsing under them. The appeal will likely be limited. We’ve already seen this play out with regional sports networks, most of which now offer their own standalone services in the $20 to $30 per month range. Despite offering more local team games than ESPN and Fox combined, these offerings aren’t gaining much traction because they’re just too expensive. The networks themselves have admitted it. Meanwhile, younger viewers are tuning out. According to Front Office Sports, the average primetime NFL viewer is 62.5 years old, and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro acknowledged that executives at the company worry about resonating with young audiences. A recent survey of sports executives found that 65 percent are concerned about maintaining live sports’ relevance. So here’s a wild idea: Maybe make it easier for people to get in the door. Let them buy access to a game, or a weekend, or a week, and maybe they’ll come back for more. If not, at least they’ll have paid something instead of turning back to piracy. The old TV business model is falling apart regardless, so now is the time to try new things. Disney: Sling didn’t ask us As we’re learning now, Disney isn’t the one willing to experiment. While Sling previously indicated that it briefed its programming partners on the Day Passes, it never explicitly said that they were on board. Disney, meanwhile, says it didn’t even get the memo. “Sling TV’s new offerings, which they made available without our knowledge or consent, violate the terms of our existing license agreement,” the company said in a statement to media outlets. It wants the court to make Sling remove Disney’s channels from the Day Passes. Keep in mind that in the pay TV world, distributors like Sling typically pay a per-month, per-subscriber “carriage fee” to programmers like Disney in exchange for their channels. The per-subscriber fee for ESPN alone was reportedly around $10 per month a couple of years ago, and that cost gets passed onto customers. The fact that Sling launched its day passes without Disney’s blessing raises some knotty questions, like: How much does Sling pay Disney when someone only signs up for a day? Is it counting per-subscriber carriage fees in a different way, or eating the month’s fee in hopes that day pass holders become regular subscribers? Were any other programmers on board with the idea, or was this all just a gambit to bring them to the bargaining table? Sling’s PR department didn’t answer those questions, but said it plans to fight the lawsuit, which it called meritless. “We will vigorously defend our right to bring customers a viewing experience that fits their lives, on their schedule and on their terms,” the company said. A long history of short-sightedness Unfortunately, this kind of hardball hasn’t ended well for TV distributors in the past. Back in 2015, Verizon tried to offer a flexible TV package for Fios customers, with a base channel lineup and a selection of “Channel Packs” for things like sports and news. Disney sued over it, and while Verizon initially claimed it was within its rights, it eventually watered down the offering and settled the lawsuit. Then, in 2020, T-Mobile tried to launch a new TV service with two distinct packages—one with broadcast, news, and sports channels, and one focused on entertainment. Programmers flipped out, claiming that T-Mobile tricked them into splitting up their channels, and T-Mobile wound up exiting the TV business entirely. With the bottom dropping out on the pay TV business, programmers have only now started embracing a modicum of flexibility, with companies like DirecTV offering “Genre Packs” for less than a typical pay TV package. But even that only happened because DirecTV was wiling to wage a PR war against Disney and subject its customers to extended blackouts. These kinds of changes shouldn’t have taken a decade, and deep down, programmers know it. They’ve quietly bemoaned the destruction of the pay TV bundle, yet they did nothing to avert it. With day passes, programmers like Disney have another chance to innovate on a tired business model and reach folks who might not otherwise even pay for their services. While it’s no surprise that they’re against it, hopefully Sling can force the issue. 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