It didn’t get done in time for the Bulls regular season opener Wednesday, but FuboTV has agreed to add the Chicago Sports Network to its streaming lineup ahead of the team’s second game Friday night.
The eleventh-hour distribution deal, announced Friday afternoon, allowed Fubo to flip the switch and turn on the nascent sports network before the Bulls play the Bucks in Milwaukee, making the game available to its pay-TV subscribers in the Chicago market.
However, many other Chicago-area viewers, including Comcast subscribers, remain unable to tune in since the new regional sports network hit the airwaves Oct. 1.
“Fubo continues to deliver more access for sports fans to watch their favorite teams, and they have made it clear that Chicago sports and their fans are an important part of that growth,” CHSN President Jason Coyle said in a news release. “As we continue to aim to be on every platform where our fans watch, we are excited about the opportunity the Fubo platform provides our fans through their flexible billing terms and availability everywhere.”
Fubo, a leading national streaming service that focuses on live sports content, will include CHSN for subscribers in the Chicago market as part of its base Pro plan, which costs $79.99 per month, with a $20 discount off the first month, the company said.
CHSN went live on Fubo as soon as the ink on the contract dried Friday afternoon. Terms of the multiyear carriage agreement were not disclosed.
“Chicago fans are some of the most passionate in sports,” Todd Mathers, Fubo’s senior vice president of content strategy and acquisition, said in a statement Friday. “We all know that sports is local, and local team coverage is a priority for Fubo’s sports-first content strategy. With the launch of CHSN on Fubo we’re ready to superserve Chicagoans with even more coverage of their most iconic teams.”
A joint venture between the Bulls, Blackhawks, White Sox and Nashville-based Standard Media, the Chicago Sports Network supplanted NBC Sports Chicago, the 20-year-old regional sports network whose broadcast rights expired in September.
CHSN struck deals with pay-TV providers DirecTV and Astound to carry the new network at launch. It also reached agreements with TV stations in Chicago, Rockford, South Bend and Indianapolis to broadcast the sports programming for free over the air.
About 15% of the 3.46 million homes in the Chicago market watch TV using an antenna, according to Nielsen, although some viewers have had trouble capturing the CHSN signal.
Comcast, a former partner in NBC Sports Chicago, has balked at paying carriage fees to CHSN for programming some viewers can get for free with a TV antenna. Both sides remain at an impasse, leaving the cable giant’s 1 million Chicago subscribers in the dark as the Bulls season gets underway.
The Blackhawks began their regular season Oct. 8.
The addition of Fubo will help fill in some of the gaps in the Chicago market, bringing in a growing player in the pay-TV universe.
Fubo projects more than 1.7 million paid subscribers and nearly $1.6 billion in revenue this year for North America, according to the publicly traded company’s most recent quarterly report. The streaming service offers a wealth of live sports programming, as well as news and entertainment channels.
While its subscriber base is still dwarfed by legacy cable and satellite providers, Fubo is the ninth largest pay-TV platform in the U.S., according to data from Statista. The list is topped by DirecTV, pending regulatory approval of its merger with rival pay-TV provider Dish. Comcast ranks third nationally behind Charter.
Fubo does not disclose subscriber numbers for Chicago or any individual market, the company said.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
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