Walt Disney, Fox and Warner Bros Discovery on Friday abandoned plans to launch Venu Sports, their live sports joint venture, pulling the plug on the much-heralded effort after it ran into substantial legal opposition.

Venu was meant to attract sports fans who either cancelled or never subscribed to cable TV – but quickly ran into legal troubles. Smaller streamer FuboTV , which sued on antitrust grounds, claiming the media partners had extended Venu rights it refused to grant other distributors, giving the service an unfair competitive advantage, a Reuters report stated.

“After careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture,” the companies said.

Disney appeared to have removed a legal obstacle earlier this week after it agreed to buy a majority stake in Fubo TV and merge it with its cable-like Hulu+ Live TV service. As part of the deal, Fubo agreed to drop its lawsuit against Venu Sports.

But that didn’t resolve Venu’s legal headaches. Satellite TV providers Dish parent EchoStar and DirecTV sent letters to the US federal district court judge Thursday, arguing the settlement did nothing to resolve the underlying antitrust issues for competitors.

The three media companies decided to scrap Venu that same day, on concerns it would be an ongoing drain on time and resources, concluding they could reach young sports fans through deals with existing pay TV distributors, according to a source familiar with the matter.