Fubo Boss Calls Out Fox, Disney, and Warner Bros. Sports Streamer in "Duel to the Death"

The CEO of Fubo is challenging the upcoming sports streaming service from Fox, Disney, and Warner Bros. as a "duel to the death." The sports world was rocked earlier this month when Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. announced a joint sports streaming service. This would combine the linear network channels such as ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN+, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, ABC, Fox, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, and TruTV, so this is a big deal in the sports realm. Fubo has carved out a nice niche in sports streaming, so it's no surprise the company would fight this collaboration tooth and nail. 

Fubo CEO David Gandler spoke out against the new sports streamer from Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Disney during a conference call to discuss the company's fourth-quarter numbers. While the overall numbers were positive for Fubo at the end of 2023, the competition was the main topic on the minds of Wall Street analysts. With Fubo suing Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. after the joint announcement, Gandler said Fubo would have turned a profit in 2023 if it wasn't for "anti-competitive" distributor practices.

Fubo CEO ready for "duel to the death" with Fox, Disney and Warner Bros.

"This is a duel to the death," Fubo CEO David Gandler said in response to a question on whether the company's battle with the three conglomerates was a "duel to the death." 

He continued, "It has been when we started this company. We're fighting for consumers. We're fighting for our customers. We're fighting for the tens of billions of dollars that are wasted annually on consumers paying for the same content multiple times. This is a very important process. We are sticking to our principles, to our guns. We are continuing to walk and chew gum at the same time, as you see in our numbers."

At the top of the investor call, Gandler the joint venture "is just the latest example of the sports cartel's attempt to block and steal Fubo's vision of what a sports streaming bundle should look like, resulting in billions of dollars of damages to our business."

Gandler added, "We've been competing with these very large companies for nine years now. We have an overwhelming amount of evidence from all these years that demonstrates anti-competitive patterns that we've been dealing with. We just want parity."

CBS and NBC are the two major sports entities that aren't a part of this new sports streaming venture. CBS and the various CBS Sports networks have a streaming option with Paramount+, while NBCUniversal has a lot of sports coverage on Peacock. The NFL airs multiple games every week on CBS, and Sunday Night Football is covered by NBC. Those two companies also have a slice of the Super Bowl pie. Amazon is also in on the NFL, with the exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football. In addition to some NFL coverage, NBC also has deals with the Olympics and the English Premier League.