Campaign Imminent: FuboTV invests in first-ever MLB team partnership (Score 44)

Sales Lead: FuboTV recently established a partnership with the Boston Red Sox for the 2023 season.

• This is the sports-oriented live TV streaming service's first-ever MLB team partnership.
• It involves the launch of Fubo branding and hospitality opportunities at Fenway Park
  • The partnership will also involve fan engagement at the ballpark (so, experiential marketing) and across various digital platforms.
• The company will likely:
  • Pursue additional sponsorship opportunities
  • Ramp up spend in and around Boston
  • Keep increasing overall national TV spend
  • Return to heavier digital spend
• Target demographic: 
  • ​​​​​​​Millennials and Gen-X, specifically male sports enthusiasts

Recent leadership shifts:

• Over the past year, FuboTV hired content strategy SVP and head Todd Mathers (June 2022) and ad sales marketing VP Tiana Idoni-Koppel (February 2023).

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: So far this year, FuboTV has spent approximately $5.7m on national TV commercials, a 24% increase from the approximately $4.6m spent within the same 2022 timeframe.
  • Last year: The company spent around $19.4m on this channel last year after having spent about half of that, around $9.5m, in 2021.
  • 2023 ad programming: FuboTV's 2023 commercials have targeted shows such as NBA Basketball, NFL Football, MLB Baseball, The Bachelor, and Fight Sports: Boxing.
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: The company has allocated roughly $1.3m toward digital ads YTD, 38% less than the roughly $2.1m allocated by this point last year.
  • YTD data: Since the beginning of 2023, FuboTV has earned ~172.6m digital impressions via YouTube (70%), desktop display (25%), Facebook (2%), Instagram (2%), and mobile display (1%) ads.
    • T​​​​​​he company has placed most of this year's desktop display ads site direct onto YouTube (73%), si.com, chess.com, sports.yahoo.com, and justwatch.com.
  • Last year: In 2022, FuboTV's estimated full-year spend rose by 44% to $6.2m from that of $4.3m in 2021.
• Additional channel insights  
  • The company utilizes local broadcast, digital, OOH, Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, and online video (via Youtube Android, Youtube IOS, and Youtube.com) ads.
  • FuboTV sponsors podcasts such as the Sports Gambling Podcast.
  • It works with influencers such as celebrity athletes Kevin Garnett and Mark Sanchez.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: If you haven't yet done so, reach out soon to see if FuboTV needs additional agency support to bolster awareness of its recent rebrand.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​Maximum Effort: Creative agency partner

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix; podcast insights by Podchaser.