During fuboTV’s time at the Roth Capital Partners 33rd Annual Conference, CEO David Gandler revealed the service’s long-awaited sportsbook functionality was expected by Q4 2021. Earlier this year, fuboTV announced they were acquiring Vigtory, a smaller-scale sportsbook app, and sought to integrate the sportsbook with their live TV streaming service to create an unparalleled sports watching (and betting) experience.
“We believe online sports wagering is a highly complementary business to our sports-first live TV streaming platform,” Gandler said when fuboTV acquired Vigtory. “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.”
During today’s interview, Gandler said there are a few regulatory hurdles to cross with its betting technology, and that the service may only be available just a few states when it goes live.
The move would no doubt cement fuboTV as the top live TV streaming service for sports fans. Outside of TNT and TBS, fuboTV offers just about every sports channel one could think of, including regional sports networks like NESN and MSG. However, Gandler said that there’s always a chance for Turner’s networks to return to the platform in the future. “96% of our users watch sports, so it allows us to amortize sports content in ways that other services can’t given the more of a general entertainment-type audience that they have. We’re having discussions all the time, and hopefully, there’s an opportunity to bring them back at some point.”
While the sportsbook functionality is expected later this year, fuboTV previously promised its free-to-play gaming experience would appear first, made possible by its acquisition of Balto Sports in December 2020. There’s no word on that functionality appearing anytime soon, though.
“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,” Gandler said. “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.”