Fubo kicked off 2025 with a Q1 earnings report that’s basically a Rorschach test for media analysts. See a path to profitability? You’re an optimist. See the 3% subscriber drop? Welcome to reality.
Let’s start with the headline numbers: Fubo ended the quarter with 1.47 million subscribers in North America. That’s down from 1.67 million just three months ago. For those keeping score, that’s a 200K drop—roughly the population of Des Moines…gone. Poof. But don’t worry, they beat revenue expectations with $416.3 million. Because nothing screams “healthy business” like losing subs and clinging to analyst-beating scraps.
The revenue boost came with an asterisk the size of a Super Bowl halftime show. Fubo notched a $220 million gain from its antitrust lawsuit against the ghost of Venu Sports—aka the JV that never made it to launch. Without that legal Hail Mary, this quarter’s narrative gets a whole lot darker.
Advertising? Down 17% to $22.8 million. Blame the blackout with TelevisaUnivision, which pulled its channels in December and took Fubo’s ad revenue with it. Execs spun it as a temporary bump in the road. But when you’re already bleeding subs, losing content—and the ads that come with it—feels less like a bump and more like a blowout.
Still, Gandler wants you to believe the second half of 2025 is when Fubo turns the corner. They’re reiterating a path to profitability and hyping the upcoming sports-only bundle that’s supposed to drop in time for football season. Never mind the fact they still don’t have key rights locked in. Just squint a little harder. There’s a growth story in there somewhere, right?
And then there’s the looming Disney deal—the eventual merger with Hulu + Live TV, currently in regulatory limbo until 2026. Until that closes, Fubo is dancing solo at the live TV prom, hoping someone puts “pure-play sports streaming” on their dance card.
Bottom line: Fubo wants to frame Q1 as a strategic reset. But the numbers tell a different story. They’re still stuck between cutting deals, dodging lawsuits, and explaining to Wall Street why losing subscribers isn’t as bad as it looks. Spoiler: it is.
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