Fubo rolls out its Women's Sports Zone as FAST channels cover the women’s game

The GIST: Sports-focused FAST channel Fubo recently launched its Women's Sports Zone while touting highly-customizable ad campaigns for brands. Inspired by viewers’ interest in women’s sports, Fubo found a way to activate in the space without having any direct media rights for a major league. A total game-changer.

The details: Fubo currently distributes several sports networks that air women’s sports, including ESPN, CBS, Ion, WNBA on Ion, and WSN. This means the Women’s Sports Zone can aggregate games from the WNBA, NWSL, women’s March Madness, and other major women’s sporting events available on these networks.

• According to Fubo, the decision to create this hub was motivated by the fact that 61% of its subscribers watch women’s sports on the platform, while half considered themselves to be either moderate or super fans of women’s sports content.

The landscape: While Fubo has produced women’s sports content like The Syd + TP Show, it’s following in the footsteps of platforms like Roku and its dedicated NWSL zone, which launched in March. Roku and FAST competitor Tubi have also been focused on producing original women’s sports content, while entire FAST channels devoted to women’s sports have been popping up.

• However, there is one major factor playing in Fubo’s favor: The company recently agreed to a merger with Disney-owned Hulu, which will broaden Fubo’s reach and its access to women’s sports programming. While it may not be first, it could soon have the widest array of women’s sports content among the competition.

Zooming out: A merger with Hulu may be the answer Fubo needed in how to get involved in women’s sports, but only time will tell. As for advertisers, Fubo could potentially represent a way to activate around women’s sports at a lower price point rather than directly pairing up with a bigger network like ESPN, which has also seen intensified competition for ad inventory.

• While the hub concept is still relatively new among these networks, it already seems to be attracting brand interest. Fubo said a major financial brand has already committed to advertising in its new hub with specific interactive ad programming tied to the WNBA season. Sold.