Considering the lack of, or extremely limited, highlights offered recently this is a shrewd move by Discovery-ES. Another pointer from the presser this morning is that ES Player is to get another shot at the Connected TV market soon which will be great to see.
Talking of highlights I wonder if the BBC will pretend Wimbledon 2Day never happened and bring back Today at Wimbledon - or indeed after this news scrap their own highlights show completely, perhaps in favour of extended live action (as it often is anyway) which can round up the day in the last half hour or so anyway.
The fact this consultation goes out with such short notice is ridiculous really and just shows how worthless they are. Indeed I'm sure the wording of the act around "crown jewels" is that Pay TV subscribers have to be offered some kind of coverage (usually highlights), and usually it's the free to air broadcasters applying to OFCOM for that not to be the case.
Not seen the trailer but Ofcom won't be able to say either way until the consultation is over. However, I think it's highly unlikely Ofcom will refuse them as I can't see any good argument against it.