FuboTV sees threats from both sports bundlers, cable operators

FuboTV (FUBO) shares reversed course in Friday's session, moving lower by at least 8% ahead of the closing bell after reporting growth in its North American subscriber base. The TV company posted slightly better-than-expected fourth-quarter results, squeaking past revenue estimates and narrowing losses per share.

Activate Consulting Founder and CEO Michael Wolf sits down with Yahoo Finance Live in-studio to discuss fuboTV's relative position in the virtual cable space, touching on its plans to block the joint sports bundling venture from Disney's ESPN (DIS), Fox (FOX, FOXA), and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).

"But even that partnership, it's expected that their package... [will be] somewhere between $40 to $50 a month," Wolf says. "So, yes, that's a threat to them, but a great deal more of the threat is they're not just competing against Disney and those three companies — they're competing against Comcast and charter and other big operators."

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

- We're going to continue on media streaming because FuboTV reporting fourth quarter earnings ahead of the open, beating on revenue and revealing a new record for paid subscribers in North America. That stock, though, down today, getting crushed to start the year. Down about 40% here. For more on FuboTV's earnings and the streaming landscape, we're going to bring in Activate Consulting Founder and CEO Michael Wolf. Michael, thank you so much for being here with us.

MICHAEL WOLF: Great to be here.

- As I mentioned, some of the top line numbers, good. But a miss on revenue and subscribers for 2024 for the guidance there. What do you think about that miss? And what do you think is the biggest contributor to that?

MICHAEL WOLF: Well, you basically have to pull back and recognize that what Fubo is, it's a virtual pay-TV operator, virtual cable. And if you look at the business, we have about 8 million people in-- I'm sorry, 18 million people in the US households that are getting virtual cable.

But Fubo is the smallest. You've got 8 million from YouTube TV. You've got another 4.6 million from Hulu. And you've got some others, including Dish. So this is relatively small. They have 1.6 million subscribers in the US and another 400,000. And they've lost but-- they've lost almost 2/3 of their market value in just the last two years, even though they've doubled their income in the last two years.

- So what is the future then look like for a Fubo? Does it get acquired by someone else? Or what happens?

MICHAEL WOLF: Well, at an enterprise value of roughly $700 million, it's going to be very valuable to somebody else. It's unlikely this company they keep losing money. Last year, they lost over $400 million in revenue.

So the other issue is that as much as they've started off marketing themselves as a sports service, they cost at $80 for their basic package. They cost just as much as you have in cable. And there's not a lot of difference between what you're going to get on FuboTV.

Now they have a great Latin package I can tell you that my kids have a lot more fun watching soccer in Spanish than a Latin package is only $32. But-- so it comes down to their position in the market, their financials, and then ultimately how much it costs for somebody to buy the service.

- You talked about the struggles, though, in terms of the market cap for the company. To what extent is that related to that joint venture between ESPN, Fox, and WBD?

MICHAEL WOLF: Well, it's been going in this direction. And there is a reason it's down to 8% for the day, which is that investors are very concerned. And the fact that the CEO of the company has had some very-- he's pulled no punches, a very choice words for-- we're talking about the partnership between Disney, Fox, and Warner Discovery.

And so-- but that-- even that partnership, it's expected that their package-- they haven't publicized anything but somewhere between $40 to $50 a month. And so yes, that's a threat to them. But a great deal more of the threat is they're not just competing against Disney and those three companies. They're competing against Comcast and Charter and other big operators.

- Let's sort of pull back even further, right, and just look at the streaming landscape overall because it feels confusing right now. It feels confusing for viewers. It feels confusing for investors in terms of all the offerings that are out there. And now they're doing the bundles. And so, you know, who do you think sort of comes out on top when all of that is said and done?

MICHAEL WOLF: Well, first of all, they all keep saying they were going to finally make money and cut their losses. And they really don't have a choice but to continue to produce. And so we've got Netflix is going to continue to produce programming. Amazon is huge in comparison. And yes, it starts off being confusing with the subscriber. How do you know what show is on what network or what streaming service?

So we have a couple of streaming services that are really here to stay. And it's Netflix. And Disney does have a bundle of Hulu and ESPN+ and Disney+. What's fascinating is we're already seeing the rebundling of-- in the same way we had cable. So Verizon just announced a service where they'll give you both Max and Netflix for 10 bucks a month. So we're going to see the rebundling. Still all of our research shows that the average American home is going to subscribe to at least five services.

- Really?

- Wow.

MICHAEL WOLF: They'll churn them. And that, by the way, is on top of the free services like Tubi and Pluto that they're going to be using.

- I mean, it sounds a lot like cable, right?

MICHAEL WOLF: It certainly does where-- and as soon as we get more live programming on these services-- and then what's next is news. And it's a pretty great substitute for cable.