In the small-ball world of pay TV these days, you manufacture subscriber “runs” anyway you can. And the newly rebranded Fubo is using a new marketing relationship with Major League Baseball's out-of-market games package, MLB.TV, to claim itself as the "leader in baseball coverage" ahead of Opening Day on March 30.
Similar to NFL Sunday Ticket, the MLB.TV direct-to-consumer package lets fans stream out-of market games, both live and on-demand, and enjoy trinkets like spring training games. It’s priced at $149.99 a season or $24.99 monthly. There's also a plan that lets users follow a single team for $129.99 a season.
MLB.TV will now be added to Fubo as an add-on package at the standard $24.99 rate. In addition to watching MLB.TV through the Fubo app, and paying for it via one Fubo bill, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD)’s users will also be able to stream MLB.TV games on demand via Fubo’s Lookback feature.
Fubo’s pro-baseball bullpen now includes MLB Network and MLB Strike Zone; regional sports networks including Bally Sports, which touts rights for 14 teams (at least for now); cable networks with MLB rights, including ESPN and FS1; and Big Four network Fox, which also has MLB rights.
“With today's MLB.TV partnership, Fubo now offers the most baseball coverage of any streaming company, on top of our already leading position for local sports coverage and our robust NFL and college sports packages,“ Fubo co-founder and CEO David Gandler said.
Much like the National League East this season, Gandler and Fubo have competition to this claim.
They rightly claim YouTube TV has fallen back a bit on its baseball bonafides, after the Google-owned vMVPD abruptly dropped MLB Network in late January.
But DirecTV, which just sponsored USA Baseball in the just-completed World Baseball Classic, is also marketing the hardball angle pretty stridently itself these days.
In addition to MLB Network, DirecTV also carries RSNs including Bally Sports, broadcaster Fox, and cable channels ESPN and FS1. And notably, the operator also features Turner’s TBS, which has a weekly Tuesday night MLB game during the regular season plus a piece of the playoffs.
For its part, Fubu reminded Next TV that it limited the scope of its semantics to merely claim "streaming" leadership. We'll be more, er, careful next time. ▪️
