Yahoo News Why FuboTV Dropped the TV from Its Name: It Just Sounds Cooler
FuboTV is having its “The Facebook” moment.
The sports-centric live-TV streaming platform shall henceforth be known only as “Fubo,” the company announced Tuesday. The rebrand “reflects the company’s emphasis on efficient growth,” a press release reads.
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It’s a quote that means nothing, really, beyond the argument that saying and writing “Fubo” is less time consuming than saying and writing “FuboTV.”
Also, as Fubo co-founder and CEO David Gandler said Tuesday, it’s the shorthand their customers were already using. We buy that part, but as one Fubo insider told IndieWire, it also just sounds a lot cooler. You know, like “A billion dollars” in “The Social Network.” (Coincidentally, also Fubo’s 2022 global revenue.)
The new campaign, which stars NBA legend Kevin Garnett with former NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez and fetures the tagline “If Sports Fans Built a Streaming Service,” is co-produced by Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort Prods. Reynolds, who just made a mint selling Mint to T-Mobile, has a stake in FuboTV — er, Fubo — via Maximum Effort, which produced the “Deadpool” films, “Free Guy,” “The Adam Project,” and “Welcome to Wrexham.” (You can watch the spots at the bottom of this post.)
In August, Maximum Effort received 2 million shares of FuboTV common stock valued at $10 million. In return, FuboTV got a first-look deal for unscripted content, a blind scripted deal (one that allows Fubo to decide later what that scripted project will be), and a Maximum Effort Fubo channel.
Like Hulu + Live TV or YouTube TV, Fubo is a virtual MVPD. The service allows users to cut the cable-TV cord while retaining access to linear television. Fubo’s 160-channel tier costs $74.99 per month; its 223-channel tier with 4K events is $84.99; its 232-channel tier also includes Showtime for $94.99.
YouTube TV just jacked up its monthly price from $64.99 to $72.99. There’s also a $10.99 sports add-on that one might need to compete with Fubo, which is the only live-TV streaming platform with every Nielsen-rated sports channel. (Yes, cable replacements are starting to look an awful lot like a cable bill.)
Courtesy of Maximum Effort
In 2022, FuboTV outgrew vMVPD rivals Hulu + Live TV and Sling TV in 2022 subscriber net adds, according to Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (Alphabet fka Google does not break out YouTube TV subs.)
A Fubo spokesperson told IndieWire its viewers spend 100-plus hours per month on the platform, with 89 percent going to live TV (vs. on demand) and 94 percent on a big screen (vs. mobile).
In addition to crossing $1 billion in global revenue last year, FuboTV generated $100 million in advertising revenue; both were firsts. The company closed out 2022 with 1.445 million subscribers in North America and 420,000 subs from the rest of the world. (Fubo is in the U.S., Canada, and Spain; it acquired Molotov in France.)
Like many young streaming services, the publicly traded Fubo is still not profitable and lost about $562 million in 2022. Shares of FUBO on the New York Stock Exchange were up by nearly 14 percent on Tuesday.
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