2025 Streaming Draft for Vergecast Show

ide-hustle streaming services, like Apple TV Plus and Amazon Prime Video, and the social platforms like TikTok and YouTube that often feel simultaneously precarious and unstoppable. It’s not easy, fighting the streaming wars.

That’s why, once a year, we dive in and try to figure out where things are headed. On this episode of The Vergecast, it’s time for our third annual Streaming Draft. The rules are simple: there are seven categories, three hosts, and thus a total of 21 services to be drafted. Each service can only be drafted once, and whoever picks the best roster wins.

First, we recapped last year’s results. Here they are:

Nilay Patel’s picks: TikTok, the Disney Bundle, Sony Bravia Core, YouTube TV with Sunday Ticket, MotorTrend TV, and Max

Alex Cranz’s picks: Peacock, Hulu, Netflix, Channels, Crunchyroll, and Paramount Plus

David Pierce’s picks: YouTube (with ads), Apple TV Plus, Tubi, Prime Video, Criterion, and Instagram Reels

The Verge’s Jake Kastrenakes took over for Alex’s picks this year, and alongside David and Nilay he kicked off the draft. Each of the three hosts then had to fill the following seven categories:

Cheap (has to have a tier under $10)
Awards (has to have won an Oscar)
4K (has to offer content in 4K)
Live (has to have some live element)
Niche (has to be a genre-specific service)
New this year: Content (a show or movie from a service you didn’t pick)
Wild card (anything you want)

This may not surprise you, but the draft went pretty immediately off the rails. But an hour or so later, we’d finished. Don’t read this until you’ve listened to or watched the episode, but here are the results:

Jake’s picks:
– Cheap: Tubi
– Awards: Netflix
– 4K: Hulu
– Live: Instagram Live
– Niche: PBS Passport
– Content: LoFi Girl
– Wild Card: Kanopy

Nilay’s picks:
– Cheap: TikTok
– Awards: Max
– 4K: Disney Plus
– Live: Sunday Ticket
– Niche: Kaleidescape
– Content: CNBC
– Wild Card: F1 TV

David’s picks:
– Cheap: Peacock
– Awards: Amazon Prime Video
– 4K: YouTube Premium
– Live: YouTube TV
– Niche: BritBox
– Content: Stranger Things season five
– Wild Card: Paramount Plus

As ever, we all think we won the draft. And who actually won is going to be hard to know for a while. We’ll see what Fox’s upcoming streaming service looks like, whether Disney can make ESPN Flagship a true winner of a sports streamer, how long Apple and Amazon decide to keep throwing money at Hollywood, and whether TikTok even still exists in 2026. It sometimes feels like Netflix is the only truly safe bet in the business. No wonder it went first.