Streaming Service FuboTV to Expand into Sports Wagering

In a letter to shareholders published on Nov. 10, sports-centric streaming service FuboTV revealed that it intends to expand into the sports wagering market.

The company has previously said it sees the online wagering space as “complementary” to its business. In June, CEO David Gandler said FuboTV could look to partner with sports betting companies beyond standard marketing and referral deals. 

“Owning our own technology stack allows us to think creatively about which direction we’d like to go,” CEO David Gandler said at the time, as reported by The Streamable.

“We believe fuboTV sits firmly at the intersection of three industry megatrends: the secular decline of traditional TV viewership, the shift of TV ad dollars to connected TVs and online sports wagering,” the latest letter says. “As our cable TV replacement product is sports-focused, we believe a significant portion of our subscribers would be interested in online wagering, creating a unique opportunity to drive higher subscriber engagement and open up additional revenue opportunities. Simply put, we expect wagering will lead to more viewing, and this increased engagement will lead to higher ad monetization, better subscriber retention and a reduction in subscriber acquisition costs.”

The company now expects to “share more tactical details as appropriate.”

In addition to the sports wagering news, FuboTV announced that it had its best quarter in company history for the three months ending on Sept. 30 — it then went public in October. Q3 revenues were $61.2 million, a 47% year-over-year increase. 

Subscription revenue, specifically, increased 64% year-over-year to $53.4 million; advertising revenue increased 64% year-over-year to $53.4 million.

Paid subscribers at the end of the quarter reached 455,000, a 58% increase year-over-year. Total content hours streamed by paid and free FuboTV users in Q3 increased 83% year-over-year to 133.3 million hours.