Fubo tops Wall Street forecasts in Q4 before Disney acquisition
In the last quarter before it was acquired by Disney, pay-TV company Fubo beat Wall Street expectations and reached 1.63 million subscribers in North America.
Fubo’s revenue in the July-September quarter fell 2% year-over-year to $368.6 million. Earnings per share were 2 cents on an adjusted basis, reflecting a loss of 8 cents per share in the same period a year earlier. The number of subscribers was an all-time high for the company during the third quarter.
Wall Street analysts had expected a loss of 4 cents per share and revenue of $361.3 million.
Last week, Disney announced the completion of its acquisition of 70% of Fubo, giving it 6 million subscribers across Fubo and Hulu + Live TV, which will continue to operate separately. The timing of the announcement appears to be no coincidence, as it came at a time when Disney had reached an impasse with YouTube TV. ABC, ESPN and other Disney networks have been dark in 10 million YouTube pay TV homes since last Thursday night.
The Disney-Fubo deal was part of the settlement of an antitrust lawsuit Fubo filed last January against Disney, Fox Corp and Warner Bros. Discovery, backers of the planned joint venture, Venu Sports. Fubo accused the media giants of anti-competitive behavior, and a federal judge agreed. The case was settled before trial, and the vino was overturned.
During the third quarter, Fubo launched a sports-focused bundle in 100 U.S. markets, with plans to expand it. It said in the lawsuit that its previous efforts to reach the market with such a package were thwarted by senior programmers. The company said they forced Fubo to bear the general entertainment fare, distorting the focus of the show and making it more expensive.
In the wake of the Fubo case as well as its 2024 distribution agreement with Disney, major distributor DirecTV has launched a sports-focused package, as have other major operators. Meanwhile, Disney’s ESPN has launched an enhanced streaming offering that combines full access to more than a dozen linear channels plus live-only programming.
Along with sports offerings, Fubo this quarter launched a channel store, enabling subscribers to subscribe to subscription offerings such as Hallmark+, DAZN1, MLB.tv, MGM+, Starz and Paramount+ with Showtime. Some regional sports networks are also included in the store, with programming accommodated in Fubo’s interface, “further realizing our vision of making sports programming accessible and frictionless,” the company said in its quarterly letter to shareholders.
In the letter, founder and CEO David Gandler also spoke about Disney’s important achievement.
“The completion of our transformative transaction,” he wrote, “will create an enhanced pay-TV operator aimed at providing consumers with greater flexibility and choice in programming. We are very excited about the future and the value we believe this transaction will bring to consumers and shareholders alike.”
Shares of Fubo, which continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange, rose slightly on the earnings news. Shortly after news of the acquisition and settlement at the beginning of 2025, its value tripled and has remained largely flat at that level in the subsequent months.