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Activist investor Ancora on Tuesday urged Disney to put Nelson Peltz on its board, days after Peltz and his firm, Trian, launched a proxy fight with the entertainment giant.

“In an effort to avert an election contest following a year of distractions and disappointing performance, we hope you join us in encouraging the Board to pursue a viable compromise with Trian Fund Management, L.P. and Nelson Peltz,” Ancora wrote in the letter. “Mr. Peltz (or a qualified designee) would make a fantastic addition to Disney’s Board.”

Ancora also suggested that much of Disney’s difficulties in recent years — including streaming losses and and several box office flops — could be pinned on the company board.

“A degree of shareholder-driven change is certainly warranted in Disney’s boardroom following an extended period of absentminded governance, ineffective succession planning, polarizing actions and sustained value destruction,” Ancora said Tuesday. “While it has been argued that challenges largely stem from the tenure of Bob Chapek, the Board was in the driver’s seat before, during and after that time.”

Disney fired back at Trian last week, suggesting that the move was fueled by a personal grudge against Disney CEO Bob Iger held by Peltz ally and former Marvel boss Ike Perlmutter. Trian oversees about $3 billion in Disney stock, but the overwhelming bulk of the shares is owned by Perlmutter, whom Disney laid off earlier this year. Trian is seeking more than two seats on Disney’s board, which is populated by directors seen as loyal to Iger.

Ancora’s announcement Tuesday didn’t disclose the size of its stake in Disney. Ancora owned more than 60,000 shares of Disney as of September, according to FactSet. That would be equivalent to an approximately $6 million stake as of Tuesday.

Disney had a market cap of about $160 billion as of Tuesday, its shares closing down by more than 1%. The stock is up more than 4% this year, underperforming the broader S&P 500.

Disney did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

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Disney is beginning to roll out a Hulu integration on its Disney+ streaming platform in a bid to bundle subscribers. The full launch is expected March 2024, Disney said Wednesday.

The company offers a bundle of Disney+ and Hulu, but Wednesday’s release is part of a push to integrate the two platforms. Disney last month agreed to buy the remaining one-third stake in Hulu that was owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal.

The Hulu integration is available to people who subscribe to the bundle, albeit in a limited form for now, according to a post on Disney’s website.

“It’s an unbelievable value in terms of the price point for the Bundle,” Joe Earley, president of direct-to-consumer for Disney, said in a statement. “Beyond unlocking that experience for our existing Bundle subscribers, our hope is to inspire Disney+ and Hulu standalone subscribers to upgrade to the Bundle as well, once they see everything that can be accessed.”

The two streaming platforms differ in their content offerings, with Disney+ geared toward family-oriented content and Hulu oriented more toward adult dramas and unscripted TV. The gradual launch of the integration will give parents a chance to adjust parental controls before the full release in March, Disney said.

The beginning of the integration comes after a slew of other streaming bundles have made their way onto the market.

Paramount and Apple were reported last week to be mulling a bundle of the company’s streaming platforms. Streaming leader Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max have also partnered with Verizon, which will offer a bundle of the two platforms.

Disney first announced its bundle of Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu in 2019.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

Paramount Global shares surged Friday following reports from Deadline and Puck News that Skydance and RedBird Capital were exploring potentially taking over the media giant.

Paramount shares closed up more than 12% Friday. The company has a market cap of about $10.4 billion and its year to date share price is virtually flat, lagging the S&P 500′s 20% gain.

Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has been open to making big deals, especially as the company weathers the storms of declining revenue and streaming losses.

RedBird, controlled by longtime former Goldman Sachs partner Gerry Cardinale, is invested in a variety of media and sports assets, including David Ellison’s Skydance, which helped produce Paramount’s 2022 blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick,” among other hits.

Paramount has a long-term debt load of $15.6 billion, and investors have speculated about how the company will be able to forge a path in 2024. TV ad revenue was also a weak spot for the company in its most recent quarterly report.

Meanwhile, the company is reportedly considering bundling its Paramount+ streaming service with Apple TV+.

Paramount, RedBird Capital and Skydance did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Altice USA is in talks to sell the financial news streaming service Cheddar News to LA-based private equity firm Regent LP, according to people familiar with the matter.

No deal is assured and discussions around structure are still fluid, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.

In one iteration of a potential transaction, Altice USA and Regent have discussed a deal where no money will initially exchange hands, one of the people said. Instead, Altice USA would participate in Cheddar’s future performance as part of a so-called “earn out” structure. If Cheddar meets certain performance targets, Altice USA would collect proceeds in future years that could amount to about $50 million based on internal projections, the person said.

Cheddar was founded in 2016 by Jon Steinberg, who built the company as a business news streaming service aimed at millennials. Altice USA acquired Cheddar for $200 million in 2019. At the time, CEO Dexter Goei told CNBC he made the deal because he was impressed with Steinberg’s ability to grow the business and its advertising revenue. Steinberg stayed with Altice USA through the deal before departing the company in early 2022. Goei stepped down as Altice USA’s CEO later that year.

Since then, Altice USA, the fourth-largest U.S. cable provider, behind Comcast, Charter and Cox, has looked to shed assets as its stock price has plummeted. Shares have fallen nearly 60% this year amid profit and revenue declines driven by high-speed broadband losses. Altice USA has also considered selling U.S. cable asset Suddenlink but dropped those plans in late 2022.

Regent specializes in transactions with “creative and legal structures combined with pragmatic seller friendly contractual terms,” according to its website. The private equity fund has experience owning and operating assets in the media sector, acquiring publishing company Sightline Media Group from Tegna in 2016 and Sunset Magazine from Time Inc. in 2017. Regent makes investments in many sectors and acquired the Club Monaco brand from Ralph Lauren in 2021.

A representative from Altice USA declined to comment. Regent didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The New York Times reported Altice USA was considering selling Cheddar earlier this year.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

The worldwide leader in sports still has some juice.

ESPN operating income surged 16% from a year ago to $987 million in Disney’s fiscal fourth quarter — the first time Disney has ever broken out the sports division’s finances. Revenue in the segment grew 1% year-over-year to $3.8 billion.

Disney also revealed ESPN+ was profitable in the quarter, generating $33 million. That compares to Disney+ and Hulu, Disney’s other streaming services, which lost $420 million in the quarter.

While Disney’s other linear network revenue fell 9%, ESPN’s gains in both operating income and revenue suggest the business isn’t foundering — even as sports rights makes up 40% of Disney’s overall content spend. That should come as a giant relief for investors.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said last year that “linear TV and satellite is marching towards a great precipice and it will be pushed off,” declaring that traditional TV will eventually die off completely. The ESPN results suggest the sports network may not be in as dire shape as the rest of the linear universe.

“It’s on a great trajectory,” Iger said about ESPN, in an interview with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on Wednesday. “And the ratings are actually very strong, too. ESPN had one of the strongest years ratings wise, I think, in the last four or fiveyears in 2023. That’s a great thing. We obviously are planning to take ESPN out on a direct to consumer basis. We feel great about that.”

While Disney is still a year away from breaking even in its streaming business, according to the company’s own estimates, ESPN+ already turns a profit. While linear network advertising fell, ESPN advertising had a “modest increase” in the quarter, Disney said in its earnings statement.

None of this erases ESPN’s existential crisis of surviving in a streaming-first world rather than the cable bundle. But it does suggest that ESPN isn’t as much in crisis mode as some investors have may feared.

Disney has held discussions with the four major U.S. professional sports leagues — the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball — about them potentially taking minority equity stakes in ESPN, CNBC reported in July. Disney has also had discussions with other technology companies “that can add either marketing support, technology support or possibly content support,” Iger said in a CNBC interview Wednesday.

Disney wants to transform ESPN into the preeminent digital sports distribution platform in the coming years, said Iger, who told CNBC that ESPN’s direct-to-consumer offering will launch no later than 2025.

“ESPN is the No. 1 brand on TikTok with about 44 million followers, which is an incredible statistic,” Iger said during Disney’s earnings conference call. “We feel leaning into it is the smart thing to do because of its unique quality, how popular it is, and how profitable it’s been.”

WATCH: Watch CNBC’s full interview with Disney CEO Bob Iger after fiscal fourth quarter earnings.

Fanatics is helping professional athletes transition to life after the final buzzer — or pitch, or whistle.

The company is expanding a pilot program to offer business education and exposure to players with the WNBA and MLB via a partnership with the University of Southern California. Through the one-week immersion program, players get in-classroom learning combined with hands-on experiences in Fanatics’ different business units.

The company says it is uniquely positioned to help athletes lay the groundwork for the next chapter of their careers with its wide-ranging sports portfolio. Fanatics has in recent months grown from its e-commerce core to add sports betting and live events to its growing business.

“Having a vehicle to help these athletes is not only the right thing to do, but it’s actually good for our business,” said Orlando Ashford, chief people officer at Fanatics. “These people will be friends of Fanatics, which will help us in a lot of different ways.”

Athletes in the program get a first-hand look at everything from Fanatics’ collectables business to its apparel company to its VIP and loyalty programs. They also get exposure to CEOs and experts in everything from design to marketing.

Fanatics picks up the tab for the week, covering everything from travel and transportation to food and hotel stays, Ashford said.

The pilot program launched about six years ago with a small number of NFL players. Now Fanatics is expanding the offering to more pro sports leagues. Eventually, Ashford said, the company plans to include retired players and offer a longer, six-month co-op-like experience.

One such player taking part is WNBA player Isabelle Harrison, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in May. Harrison joined 10 other professional athletes in Los Angeles this week for the Fanatics program.

To have this opportunity, especially as a woman and Black athlete, I just feel like it’s going to make the difference for my next step as a professional,” Harrison said.

The 6-foot-3 former Tennessee Vol said she found the personality and learning assessment results especially interesting. She also enjoyed the direct exposure to Fanatics’ executives and the opportunity to pick their brains.

Harrison said she was particularly looking forward to dinner on the final night of the program with Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin.

“I just don’t know if he knows the impact he’s having on us right now,” she said.

Fanatics, acquired by Rubin in 2011, has seen rapid growth over the past few years. The company is valued at $31 billion and has been quietly considering a potential initial public offering.

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In the early days of streaming, Netflix and Hulu promised an on-demand viewing experience with an ever-growing library of movies and TV shows, presenting an alternative to the traditional cable bundle.

Today, consumers are cutting the cable cord, but also juggling streaming services, creating a fragmented and confusing experience — and perhaps generating a need for a streaming bundle.

“It could certainly happen if one was focused on one type of demographic and the other, another type of demographic,” Liberty Media Chairman John Malone told CNBC’s David Faber in an interview that aired Thursday. “A Disney+ together with Max might be a pretty decent combination. You might also see sports-related or focused bundles.”

Malone, known in the industry as the “cable cowboy,” is on the board of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of Max. He has previously talked about a future of streaming bundles. But the idea has taken on more urgency of late as media companies try to reach profitability with their direct-to-consumer offerings.

Sports streaming, as Malone noted, is a major piece of the puzzle. Streaming platforms such as YouTube TV, NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Amazon Prime have made the jump and paid the price to stream big-name sports, such as NFL Football. But, exclusive deals keep certain games walled off from those who don’t subscribe to the right streaming service.

For example, Amazon secured exclusive rights to NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” in 2021 for $1 billion a year until 2033. Last year, YouTube TV secured rights for NFL Sunday Ticket for $2 billion annually. Those who don’t subscribe to one or both of these services could be out of luck when trying to view games streamed under these exclusive deals.

“Broadcast continues to survive, but is under real pressure as Big Tech competes for sports,” Malone told CNBC. “The anomaly is that network neutrality creates this world in which Amazon can go buy ‘Thursday Night Football’ for multiples of what the industry has been paying — essentially choking the networks and forcing the distribution companies to spend a lot of money on expanding capacity rapidly.”

This month, Disney announced its plans to buy Comcast’s remaining one-third stake in Hulu. And next month, Disney will launch a combined app that will bundle Disney+ and Hulu content. Disney already offers a three-way bundle plan of Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+, which Disney owns.

The company expects to roll out its direct-to-consumer ESPN offering, essentially the full channel available as a streaming option, in 2025, according to Disney CEO Bob Iger. “We obviously are planning to take ESPN out on a direct-to-consumer basis,” Iger told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on Wednesday. “We feel great about that.”

Malone also touched on the potential for more cable-streaming bundles, reflecting the resolution of Disney’s spat with Spectrum parent Charter Communications. The companies’ agreement included ad-supported Disney+ and ESPN+ plans in some Spectrum offerings.

“The streaming version with ads will be part of the cable bundle,” Malone, a former Charter board member, told CNBC. “You could buy the stream of ESPN if you want, but why would you pay for it twice? I would much rather see the cable companies be distributors of streaming in bundles and packages, because the two are kind of tied to the hip.”

Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment. Disney didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

FanDuel parent Flutter came out swinging Thursday, insisting the online gaming platform is the market leader in sports betting in the United States after DraftKings last week boasted it had taken over the top slot.

“We have a billion dollars more in revenue in the U.S., so we’re very clearly number one,” Flutter CEO Peter Jackson said in an interview with CNBC after an earnings conference call.

Even as Jackson projected confidence in the company’s market position, FanDuel’s revenues failed to meet Wall Street expectations in the third quarter. In the U.S., the company’s revenue grew by 20% year over year to $820 million, and average monthly players grew by 38%.

Flutter shares plummeted after the company reported disappointing third-quarter results. It blamed its softer than expected top line on a streak of customer wins in September and October, foreign currency headwinds, a slowdown in Australia and tax changes in India.

It did not detail earnings results, but reiterated its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $180 million in the U.S.

DraftKings, by contrast, issued improved guidance in its third quarter earnings report last week. It said it expected full-year adjusted EBITDA losses of $95 million to $115 million and revenue of $3.67 billion to $3.72 billion.

On a conference call with analysts and investors, Flutter’s CEO Jackson said he thinks the measuring stick to determine who is the market leader should change. He said net gaming revenue, rather than gross gaming revenue, should be the more important metric for who is in first place. There, FanDuel has 47% market share and holds the top spot ahead of DraftKings.

FanDuel claims the number two position in iGaming, or online casinos, in the U.S. Its gaming revenue grew 52% year over year. FanDuel said it’s the fastest-growing brand in the space.

Igaming is more profitable than sports betting — and it’s a big contributor to DraftKings gaining the number one slot. Its acquisition of Golden Nugget Online is paying off in online casino play.

DraftKings was quick to claim the crown, and CEO Jason Robins touted the company’s market position on his earnings call and in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Mad Money.” Robins said he’s very proud, “but also realized it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t continue to build on the momentum that we’ve generated.”

DraftKings took the top spot from FanDuel in August in online betting, combining iGaming and online sports betting but leaving out retail sports wagering, according to Eilers & Krejcik, a research and consulting firm in the gaming industry,

But traditionally, gambling results are categorized as sports betting (online and retail) and iGaming, separately.

Also, the Eilers & Krejcik research report was issued before all states reported their gaming numbers. August is typically a slower sports month, so iGaming results would account for a bigger percentage of the total.

At least one other rival think it has a claim to part of the online betting crown. During MGM’s earnings call Wednesday, CEO Bill Hornbuckle acknowledged DraftKings’ triumph in August, but said, “Year in and year out, we’ve been number one in iGaming. And so we’ve got a very big position we want to protect, and we’ll continue to do so.”

Vince McMahon plans to sell a substantial chunk of his stake in TKO, the parent company of WWE, the wrestling empire founded by his father, TKO said in a release Thursday

TKO’s stock fell more than 6% on Friday, closing around $79.

McMahon intends to sell 8.4 million of his shares, worth about $700 million. He owned more than 28 million shares as of August, according to a regulatory filing. The company said it and several executives are looking to buy shares from McMahon. The longtime wrestling honcho has a net worth of $2.8 billion, according to Forbes.

The move could be an indication that McMahon, 78, plans to get out of his family business, which has been the dominant player in professional wrestling for about four decades, launching the careers of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, John Cena and many other crossover stars.

Earlier this year, WWE merged with UFC to form TKO, which is majority owned by Endeavor Group, the talent agency and media company run by Ari Emanuel.

McMahon is executive chairman of TKO. In August, WWE said he was served with a federal grand jury subpoena related to allegations that he paid millions of dollars in hush money to women who accused him of sexual misconduct. He said at the time he has “always denied any intentional wrongdoing and continue to do so.”

He also went on medical leave in July after he had spinal surgery.

Endeavor, meanwhile, is exploring strategic alternatives as its market value hasn’t lived up to expectations since it went public in 2021. Endeavor’s biggest shareholder, investment firm Silver Lake, said it could take the company private.

The National Women’s Soccer League announced a four-year contract Thursday for media distribution with CBS Sports, ESPN, Amazon Prime Video and Scripps Sports.

The contract, set to begin in 2024, includes agreements for 118 national windows on the media channels, the league said, which is expected to generate “record-breaking distribution and revenue.” The NWSL will begin each regular-season weekend with Friday night matches on Prime Video, followed by double-header Saturday night games on Scripps’-owned ION network.

The league will also air a package of regular-season matches on CBS and stream live on Paramount+. Additionally, ESPN will air a package of matches across its various channels, including live streaming on ESPN+ in English and Spanish.

The remainder of the NWSL’s regular-season matches will be part of a direct-to-consumer package, the league added.

The deal is set at $60 million per year, totaling $240 million for the term of the deal, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

It amounts to a 40-times multiple from NWSL’s previous agreement, the league said.

“These partnerships fundamentally change the game for our league and the players who take the pitch each week,” NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman said in a statement. “We have taken great care to ensure our games are discoverable by increasing our reach in order to expose new audiences to everything that makes our league special, without compromising the economic value of our product. This is the beginning of our future.”

CBS will air a minimum of 21 games, ESPN and ABC will air 20 games, Prime Video will air 27 games and Scripps will air 50, according to the league.

— CNBC’s Jessica Golden contributed to this report.