FuboTV Buys Balto in a Move into the Sports Betting Landscape

FuboTV Buys Balto

FuboTV, the sports live streaming company, has recently bought a smaller technology company named Balto that specializes in organizing and developing fantasy sports and wagering games. The details of the acquisition were not disclosed by the company, but this is a sizeable investment by FuboTV nonetheless.

During the quarter three revenue meeting for FuboTV, it was announced that the company would be attempting to move into sports wagering in some capacity. This, coupled with a great revenue announcement, led to a huge boost in the stock performance in the following trading day. However, not even a full month later, it seems that FuboTV put their money where their mouth was and is investing in this side of its company.

Where is FuboTV Sports Betting Headed?

FuboTV has a unique opportunity since it owns such a large live streaming platform. No sportsbook or daily fantasy platform has truly and fully integrated itself into the actual viewing experience. This could be a massive market. Not only would you then be getting revenue from the live stream subscription and ad revenue from the viewing; however, you could also be making tons of cash on the daily fantasy or sports wagering side of your platform that the viewer can participate in, right there in the same place.

In quotes that were provided by Business Wire, the co-founder and CEO of FuboTV, David Gandler, says he believes that sports wagering can become a new and important revenue stream within the company. He feels that it will help sports betting reach more customers than it currently can by providing it within the live streaming service itself.

David Gandler goes on in the quote provided by Busines Wire to say, “The acquisition of Balto Sports will enable us to build a first-class, free to play experience that brings consumers the best games around live sports.”

This is an important nugget of information as it shows that FuboTV is making this acquisition without plans of jumping headfirst into becoming a sportsbook. What it seems the company wants to do is build a free to play contest or fantasy-like experience first and foremost.

This makes a ton of sense as the regulations and hoops to jump through to become a legalized and licensed sportsbook are incredibly difficult. It would make much more sense for FuboTV to build this free to play sports gaming platform in its app. Then, at some point in the future, FuboTV could partner with a sportsbook like DraftKings to implement the sportsbook right into the gaming section of the live-stream app.

FuboTV continues to make waves in the sports betting world and also continues to be one of the leaders in live streamed sports. It will be very interesting to follow this development as FuboTV seems to be working very quickly to deliver on the Q3 promise during the revenue meeting. This will be one of the entities to keep an eye out for. We are all eager to see how the company will innovate the sports betting landscape and the effect that this could have on traditional online sportsbooks.