Sling TV Kills Its One-Day Cable Passes After Legal Fight

Sling TV is retiring Sling Pass, the short-term access option that let viewers buy cable-style programming for a single day instead of committing to a full month. The Desk first reported the change, which affects the Dish-owned streaming service's most unconventional pricing experiment.

Sling Pass was announced last year with three tiers: a day pass, a weekend pass and a week-long pass. The idea was simple. Someone who only wanted to watch a big game on ESPN or catch breaking news on CNN could pay for just that window rather than a monthly bill they would then have to remember to cancel.

That flexibility drew fast pushback from programmers. Soon after the feature launched, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery sued Sling TV over it. Their argument centered on the idea that short-term passes undercut the carriage arrangements that underpin how channels are packaged and sold.

The courts did not hand the media giants a clean win, at least early on. A federal judge ruled against Disney's request for a preliminary injunction that would have forced Sling to pull the feature while the case played out. That left Sling Pass alive for the time being, but the legal fight remained hanging over it.

Sling defended the product in its statement on the shutdown, describing the service as built to give customers the ultimate control over their entertainment. The company's wording suggests it still sees flexibility as its selling point, even as this particular tool goes away. It is not yet clear from the reporting whether the lawsuits were the direct reason for the decision or whether business considerations played a larger role.

The shutdown is a notable moment for live TV streaming. Services in this category have steadily moved toward the cable bundles they were meant to replace, with rising prices and fewer ways to pick and choose. Sling had been one of the few to push the other way, offering cheaper, narrower and more temporary options. Losing the day pass removes one of the clearest examples of a streamer trying to break the monthly subscription model for live channels.

For viewers, the practical effect is that the cheapest way to access live sports or news on Sling now returns to its regular subscription plans. Anyone who relied on passes for occasional events will need to subscribe for a full billing period or look elsewhere.

The broader question is whether any streamer can make short-term live TV access stick when the companies that own the channels are willing to fight it in court. Sling's experiment lasted roughly a year, and its end suggests programmers still hold plenty of leverage over how their content is sold.