Disney’s Hulu + Live TV service and Fubo will merge, creating one of the country’s largest pay TV providers, the companies announced Monday in a surprise deal that will potentially allow the Venu Sports streaming service to move forward.

The deal will create a streaming multichannel video service that is second only to YouTube in scale, while potentially allowing the Venu service to move forward.

Disney’s Hulu + Live TV and sports streaming service Fubo are combining in a deal that will also see the settlement of a lawsuit against the creation of Venu Sports.

The lawsuit claims that Disney's ownership of ESPN "enables it to extract monopoly rents" and the company imposes anticompetitive terms on rivals.

One Fubo customer is seeking class-action status for a suit that would punish Disney’s ownership of both ESPN and Hulu + Live TV. Disney’s legal team has had plenty of experience combing through antitrust statutes of late.

After Disney pulled the plug on sports-streaming service Venu last week, a Fubo subscriber filed a proposed class action suit in New York federal court on Tuesday, alleging that the media giant has violated antitrust laws as both a content supplier and a distributor.