The last time Fox Corp. aired the Super Bowl, it featured buzzy commercials about its streaming service, Tubi.
This year, the broadcaster is taking a bigger leap with the free, ad-supported streamer. It’s offering football’s biggest game on the service, too.
“This time it’s less about shocking viewers and more about being in our credibility era — being a streamer that has the chops to stream the Super Bowl,” said Nicole Parlapiano, Tubi’s chief marketing officer.
Tubi will offer the same feed of the Super Bowl as its broadcast parent, commercials and all. While Fox will still claim the bulk of the viewership, the Super Bowl on Tubi signals that the media parent is betting big on its streamer.
Tubi will host two feeds as the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday: the main Fox broadcast and the Spanish-language broadcast on Fox Deportes. In addition to the pregame show, there will also be a Tubi-exclusive red carpet show prior to the game for those sports lite fans who may be more interested in the celebrity sightings, halftime show and commercials.
The Tubi app, which is available on all streaming devices and televisions as well as mobile phones, has been in the middle of a so-called Super Bowl takeover since last week. Past Super Bowl games, halftime shows and other NFL-related content are now available to stream on the service.
What is Tubi?
Pavlo Gonchar | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Legacy media companies have been fighting to make their subscription-based streaming services profitable as consumers flee the traditional TV bundle. Many have used live sports, especially the NFL, to prop up their fledgling streaming services.
Fox has taken a different streaming approach with Tubi — until now.
The media giant acquired Tubi in 2020 for roughly $440 million.
While its competitors made similar acquisitions to build on their larger streaming plans — Paramount Global bought Pluto and Comcast Corp. snapped up Xumo — Fox stuck with Tubi as its primary streaming offering and has so far avoided launching its own subscription-based streamer.
“Tubi went from virtually nothing four years ago to a meaningful number for us,” said Fox Chief Financial Officer Steve Tomsic during the company’s earnings call with investors in November.
Unlike the major streaming platforms including Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max or Disney’s Hulu or Disney+, services such as Tubi and Pluto are free offerings solely supported by advertising. The apps offer a guide of channels reminiscent of the traditional TV guide, as well as deep libraries of movies and TV series. Tubi also has original programming, although far less than the likes of Netflix, which spends billions on it. Streamers such as Tubi and Pluto rarely feature live sports.
Tubi’s viewership and revenue have been slowly gaining ground.
In 2022, Tubi’s revenue surpassed the advertising revenue generated by Fox Entertainment for the first time. The following year, Tubi for the first time earned a mention in “The Gauge,” Nielsen’s monthly snapshot of total TV and streaming viewership, not including mobile or desktop viewing. At the time, Nielsen announced Tubi had reached 1% of total TV viewing minutes. As of December, Tubi made up 1.7% of viewing minutes, according to Nielsen.
Tubi was also a source of revenue growth for Fox when the ad market was in a slump for traditional media companies. Fox has said Tubi has benefited from big moments, too, such as the recent election cycle.
The streamer recently reached 97 million monthly active viewers, and had more than 10 billion hours of streaming in 2024, said CMO Parlapiano. Tubi’s audience, 77% of which doesn’t have cable TV, skews toward millennials, Gen Z and females, with more than 34% between the ages 18 and 34.
There’s still room for Tubi to grow, CFO Tomsic said during the UBS Global Media and Communications conference in December.
“If you look at where the asset is, it’s still a bit of an unknown to many consumers, as well as sort of the professional ad buyers and the professional ad agency,” he said at the time.
Fox’s FAST approach
A Fox Sports TV camera operator during the week 5 NFL game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Carolina Panthers at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Oct. 11, 2020.
David J. Griffin | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images
While Tubi isn’t yet profitable, it hasn’t been the drain on Fox that subscription-based streaming services have been on its competitors.
Fox has focused its strategy on sports and news on traditional TV since offloading its entertainment assets to Disney in 2019. In addition to touting its highly rated programming on both fronts, executives often call out Tubi as a bright spot for the company’s growth.
“[Fox has] avoided the billions of dollars in losses that other media companies have invested building out their own streaming platforms,” said Robert Fishman, an analyst at MoffettNathanson, noting that live sports aren’t typically offered on FAST platforms, the industry jargon for free, ad-supported streaming.
Offering the Super Bowl on the streaming service gives it a chance to broaden its audience even further.
“The idea of using the biggest and most powerful sports event is of course going to bring attention to Tubi,” Fishman said.
Fox did try to broaden its streaming strategy for its sports portfolio when it teamed up with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery to announce the Venu streaming venture. Venu was supposed to offer the full live sports portfolio of each of its owners until it was held up by a lawsuit. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox recently announced they were abandoning their efforts to launch Venu.
“After Venu, Fox needs to help investors better understand how consumers are going to see their very high-quality sports assets in a streaming world,” Fishman said.
In recent quarters, Fox executives have highlighted that much of Tubi’s viewership comes from its on-demand programming rather than the curated channels. Fox reports its quarterly earnings on Tuesday.
While the Super Bowl may provide some momentum to Tubi, it’s likely a welcome addition for the NFL, too.
While the league has been wildly successful and media rights have ballooned, it has more recently leaned into streaming as the key to its future viewership and fandom.
Disclosure: Comcast owns CNBC parent company NBCUniversal. Comcast is a co-owner of Hulu.