FuboTV — the No. 6 live TV streaming service in the United States that has a heavy lean toward live sports — today announced that it's increasing its plan that will ultimately launch a sportsbook by 2022 and is acquiring sports betting and online gaming company Vigtory.
Terms of the deal, which is expected to close by April 2021, were not disclosed.
FuboTV previously acquired Balto Sports, which it will use to launch its free-to-play gaming experience in the summer of 2021. The scheme will be available to anyone — not just FuboTV subscribers, of which there are more than 545,000 as of the end of 2020. The gaming service will be a standalone app initially. It will be directly integrated into the FuboTV television experience later.
“We believe online sports wagering is a highly complementary business to our sports-first live TV streaming platform,” David Gandler, co-founder and CEO, fuboTV, said in a press release. “We don’t see wagering as simply an add-on product to fuboTV. Instead, we believe there is a real flywheel opportunity with streaming video content and interactivity. Our free to play gaming experience, which will be available to all consumers, will build further scale to fuboTV, essentially acting as another lead generator for driving subscribers to our streaming video platform and, ultimately, our sportsbook. We not only expect sports wagering to become a new line of business and source of revenue, but we also expect that it will increase user engagement on fuboTV resulting in higher ad monetization, better subscriber retention and reduced subscriber acquisition costs.”
FuboTV has seen significant growth in the run-up to going public in October 2020. While it still lags behind all the other live options in the United States, it now has a competitive slate of channels and competitive pricing, which starts at $64.99 a month. FuboTV also has a number of premium add-ons that bolster its live sports content — particularly international sports that you can't find on other services.
FuboTV also is available on every major streaming platform in the United States, including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, smart TVs, and in web browsers.
“The addition of Vigtory to fuboTV is a pivotal event in the sports entertainment industry,” Scott Butera, co-CEO of Vigtory, said in the press release. “As sports fans increasingly desire interactive sports events, sports betting and related businesses such as iGaming and free to play contests have become a critical component of fan engagement. Combining fuboTV’s broad and deep offering of live streamed sporting events with Vigtory’s world-class sports betting products creates the ultimate sports betting experience for consumers.”
