FuboTV is a new streaming service dedicated to sports. I first tried it out for the 2018 Superbowl and have kept my subscription ever since because it is cheaper than getting a full cable package and i don’t need anything except sports channels. Alot of people have been curious about it so this post will be a full review of my experience over the last 5 months.
What is FuboTV
FuboTV is great if you don’t want to deal with going through a cable company. The price of $44 a month and has more sports channels than a $110 package with directTV. They also throw in a good amount of entertainment and movie channels if you are having a date night and need something to watch.
The subscription also works on devices like android, apple, Amazon Fire TV, roku, and so on. So i like to watch it on my phone during lunch breaks.
Their starter package comes with over 70 channels, more than half of those dedicated sports channels.
Features
- Mobile app
- Cloud DVR to record upcoming games or shows
- Custom packages for certain sports
Pros
- Over 75 sports channels
- The website layout is easy to use and fun to browse all the sports
- High quality streams with no skips or annoying ads
- Bonus entertainment channels included
- Free for 7 days
Cons
- Mobile app does not have offline recorded content
Verdict
- Great tool for sports fans who want to stream
Using FuboTV
FuboTV hits it out of the park when it comes to the interface. The upcoming games and events are organized by sport. This keeps everything easy to search through, theres no need to go digging through individual sports to keep track of upcoming games.
Under each sport’s section you can further narrow down your search by choosing an event or league. For baseball you would see MLB, NCAA, or even the Olympics if they are on. All lists change depending on what’s actually playing this week.
Each event, game, or match will have a button next to it saying either ‘Watch’, ‘Watch Live’, or ‘Record DVR’.
Watch Live – Clicking this takes you to the live stream. You can also click the small record button to DVR the stream to the ‘My Videos’ section. If you click this halfway through a live stream it will only include from when you clicked.
Watch – This lets you watch anything that has been on within the last 72 hours. After 72 hours it will be removed from FuboTV unless you added it to your DVR. Depending on the channel some of these videos can not be fast forwarded or rewound, only paused, which is a bit annoying. However if you DVR a game you will have more control, so try to do that for games you really want to be able to rewind.
Record DVR – You will see this button if a match hasn’t started yet. By clicking this it will be added to your ‘My Videos’ section and scheduled for recording. You can click the button again to cancel the recording, or you can cancel it in the ‘My Videos’ section.
The FuboTV schedule can see as far as 10 days ahead of time. This can potentially be a problem if you have a 2 week camping trip with no internet access.
The Other Section is one thing I have been exploring lately too. It appears at the far left of the navigation menu and has a bunch of sports i’ve never watched before. I’ve been getting into rugby, handball, rowing, ping pong, the arena football league, and even the crossfit games.
The Cloud DVR
The Cloud DVR is one of my favorite features in FuboTV. You can use it to record any sport event, show, or movie with one click.
After recording videos FuboTV will store them in the My Videos section of your account. In this area you can see and manage all your recorded videos and scheduled videos. With a regular account you get 30 hours of cloud DVR time; which is about 15 professional basketball games, 12 baseball games, or 10 football games. You can increase the time to a ‘bottomless’ 500 hours for an extra $9.99 a month. I think it is a bit extreme to have only two options and it would be nice to see a 100 hour option for an extra $3 a month.
Channels and Packages
Lets take a look at some of the different channels you get with the premier package.
Sports Channels
- National Sports Networks
- Regional Sports Networks
- Spanish Sports Networks
- Sports Specific Networks
News Channels
The news channels are pretty useful for keeping up with stuff outside the sports world. They give you enough to stay informed: the usual NBC, CBS, FOX, and many of their niche channels. There is also the weather channel which I have seen a couple cool storm documentaries on as well as getting the radar report.
Addons
You can also add extra channels to your package if theres a certain sport you like.
- Cycling
- Adventure and Outdoor channels
- Latino Sports Channels
- Portuguese Brazil Sports Channels
- Sports Plus – Adds 20 more channels including extra MMA channels, NFL redzone, Sports illustrated TV, and the stadium channel
Quality
Depending on the channel you will either have a maximum quality of 720p or 1080p live stream. You can easily switch between qualities or turn on closed captions in the video settings. The auto quality Isetting will throttle your streaming quality depending on how good your internet is.
At home I very rarely have had any buffering issues and am always happy with the speed. However when I use the mobile app on the subway or with public wifi I can have lots of low quality streaming which is no surprise.
Free Trial
One cool thing about FuboTV is the free seven day trial they offer to anyone interested in trying it out. To start the trial you have to submit your credit card information. Then after 7 days you will be billed for a first month fee of $19 and then the fee for your selected package every month after that. Even though you have to submit your card you can still cancel at any time during the seven days.
User Reviews
I try to make my reviews unbiased by including many different sources and not just my own. Heres a collection of what some people have said about FuboTV on various reviews sites
The Good
Derek – “I have no buffering issues at all. I have Cox internet 300/30 speed. I watch on my mac book pro, iphone and apple tv.”
Kelvin – “I absolutely love Fubo!! Great channel that provides all the games and the DVR feature is beyond helpful.”
Jose Felix – “Best way to see my favorite soccer games”
The Bad
Christian – “Great service but want more channels on the Latino plan and the bein integration.”