Fubo Planning On International Expansion Through Disney+

Last week, Disney announced that it had completed its deal to combine Fubo’s business with Disney’s Hulu + Live TV business, which has resulted in Disney owning a 70% stake in Fubo.  

Fubo TV is a live TV streaming company with the mission of delivering premium sports, news and entertainment programming.  

During a recent Q&A session for Fubo’s quarterly financial results, Fubo CEO David Gandler revealed that one area they believe they can expand their business is to grow Fubo’s international subscribers, which currently is less than a million, as they are only operating in Spain and Canada. 

Following the deal with Disney, there looks to be a plan to potentially integrate Fubo into Disney+ internationally, similar to how Hulu+Live TV works in the United States.

Last but not least, an area that we really do not discuss a lot, which is the international piece. We’ve been really focused on our unified platform.  As I like to say, timing is everything. That platform is almost ready to go. We’ll be onboarding Molotov or migrating it onto the FuboTV platform. Disney has 100-plus international subscribers in its D+ service. I think that similar to the way Hulu + Live TV has been embedded into Hulu and potentially into Disney+, we think that there’s probably an opportunity for us to drive significant growth. Our ambitions have not changed. We want to be the world’s largest live TV provider. We are using streaming to make a smarter, cheaper, and more profitable TV product.

A similar question was asked about the potential of more international growth with Disney, to which he explained:

I’m very bullish on rest of the world. I have been. It’s all about a timing question. Right now, as I just said, we are very focused on migrating Molotov onto the Fubo platform. We’ll look to partner with Disney internationally. I think this is going to create a tremendous amount of value for both companies. Disney+ will benefit from all the local programming that we’re going to provide. Markets like France, there are probably three or four markets we’d like to start with in the next 18 to 24 months, and then quickly move in to other markets because the platform has been built so efficiently. It is obviously core. I don’t know why there’s always a question around rest of world. I mean, you tell me.

Roger’s Take:  There is a lot of potential growth with the idea of launching a live TV service within Disney+ around the world, but it’s going to be tricky with different rules, businesses and channels involved, so a one-size-fits-all program isn’t going to work.  But as more people shift from traditional television to streaming, having live TV built directly into Disney+ could be a huge benefit. 

However, the international market is very different to the US, where cable has dominated for decades.  Will Disney+ subscribers be interested in paying more for a live-TV add-on, or is this a way for Disney to increase the value of its streaming service to boost engagement and explain why we’ve not seen the Streams feature implemented internationally?    Much as we’ve seen with Disney rebranding Star to Hulu around the world after finalising its deal with Comcast, it’s possible the next big feature to come to Disney+ is live TV. 

In the US, I fully expect that Hulu+Live TV will merge with Fubo and then also be fully integrated into Disney+ as an optional add-on.  Setting the stage for a potential massive global expansion within Disney+, to drastically increase engagement and usage.   However, it does seem this might not happen globally at once and might be limited to selected countries like Canada, Spain, and France first. 

What do you think about the idea of Fubo being launched on Disney+ internationally?  Let me know on social media!