Head of Fubo Sports Network Discusses Launch of PFL Challenger Series

How do you determine which of your live sports rights live on the free network, as opposed to being available exclusively to paid FuboTV subscribers?

Ben Grad, our head of content strategy and acquisition, and the content team go after all these live rights, and then we launch it on Fubo Sports Network to get it out to as many people as possible. With the CONMEBOL World Cup qualifiers, for example, we would put certain games on Fubo Sports Network for free. Then, once we build up that, we take it across to the paywall for FuboTV to get subscribers. So, it can be an acquisition tool.

And that’s what we’re going to do for PFL. We're going to have the first episode on FSN for free, and then the next seven following Friday will be on FuboTV for the subscribers.

On the subject of PFL, why did this deal make sense for Fubo Sports Network and FuboTV?

We do a lot of fight programming, and the audience loves it. They eat it up. Sometimes when we're looking at the viewership, it's three in the morning, it's five in the morning, and people are still watching fighting. So we leaned into it. We got on a call with the PFL guys, and they had this new idea for this Challenger Series, and we just worked it out because we’re always trying to bring something new to the audience.

So was it important to you to have your own franchise within PFL as opposed to just having select events?

Definitely. It's a brand builder. You're watching the fight, you got fuboTV on the mat. We can't ask for something better than that.

What else is coming up at Fubo Sports Network?

I can give you a bit of a teaser that we're looking into launching a series of original documentaries, produced in-house, because docs do really well on the channel. Beyond that, we're just always out there looking for live rights relationships to give the viewers what they want. Viewership on Fubo Sports Network was up 75 percent over last year, so we're finding we're giving them what they want. We're going to keep looking for more and build this network.

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