- Fox’s free streaming service, Tubi, will broadcast its first Super Bowl this weekend.
- The service has gained market share but still faces stiff competition for free and low-cost viewing.
- Tubi’s marketing chief dove into how the service is planning to capitalize on the Big Game.
The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles aren’t the only ones getting ready for the Super Bowl.
Tubi, the Fox-owned free streaming service, is preparing to air the Big Game for the first time. But its sights are set on what happens after the final whistle.
Tubi marketing chief Nicole Parlapiano told Business Insider that the service wants to show viewers and advertisers that it has reached its “credibility era” as a destination for high-quality entertainment.
“I think there can be a stigma on the free services,” Parlapiano said. “People think, if it’s free, it must not be premium or might not have the things they want. So getting them on the product to see that isn’t true is extremely powerful.”
She added that Tubi wanted to demonstrate to advertisers that free TV is something people view intentionally and not just in the background.
Tubi will simulcast the Chiefs-Eagles clash produced by Fox Sports in 4K on any phone, computer, or connected TV — with no credit-card information or account set-up required.
Parlapiano said the streamer would also air its own shoulder programming for people who aren’t sports fanatics but want to participate in the Super Bowl as a cultural event. These will be promoted via a tile in the app. The highlight of this effort will be a fashion-focused pre-game show hosted by influencer and model Olivia Culpo. Her husband, Christian McCaffrey, played for the San Francisco 49ers in last year’s Super Bowl.
“If you are one of the girlies who doesn’t care about anything besides who’s there and what they’re wearing, then it’ll be very clear that’s the place for you,” Parlapiano said.
From ‘stunty’ growth to maturity
Tubi launched in 2014 and was acquired by Fox in 2020 for $440 million.
It was the fastest-growing streaming service in 2023 and is especially popular among Gen Z. The service said in 2024 that it had reached 97 million monthly active users. Tubi made up 1.7% of TV viewing in December, according to Nielsen. That put it ahead of some major paid services like Peacock, Paramount+, and Max.
Tubi
“People know that we’ve gotten bigger, but they don’t know why,” Parlapiano said. “I want to leave that not as a question after this night.”
Many may already associate Tubi with the Super Bowl, thanks to a breakthrough commercial. When Fox last carried the Big Game two years ago, the streamer created panic with what Parlapiano called a “stunty” ad that made many people think that someone had sat on the remote.
“We took a lot of risks back then, and it kind of set the pace for how we approached the business in the past two and a half years,” Parlapiano said.
Tubi’s marketing team took a more conventional approach to this year’s Super Bowl. Its campaign features 15- and 60-second ads promoting Tubi as a streamer for specific viewing interests and will also promote new licensed offerings like “Dune” and original programs like “Sidelined: The QB and Me,” “The Thicket,” and “The Z Suite” — a new Gen-Z workplace show.
Tubi has tried to set itself apart from other services by serving up a vast library of subgenres and cult favorites. To keep costs down, it licenses most of its content except for a small portion of originals.
How Tubi views sports and live events
Fox has streamed sports on Tubi before when it wanted to get extra reach for games or didn’t have room in its own schedule for them. It has streamed some Mexico Liga MX games, for example.
Patrick Crakes, a media and sports consultant, said streaming the Super Bowl on Tubi has benefits for the league and Fox’s advertisers, too.
“They’ll reach some people who didn’t have the pay TV bundle,” he said. “Everything Fox can drive to Tubi is incremental to them.”
Tubi is a sub-scale streamer that’s still not profitable. While airing live sports can make sense when there’s an intersection with culture, it’s not pushing into acquiring its own live (costly) sports. Fox is generally looking elsewhere for streaming options for its sports content. It’s planning to launch a new paid streaming service and has a forthcoming skinny bundle with Disney’s Fubo.
“Having live sports all the time is a completely different muscle,” Parlapiano said.
She called the Super Bowl simulcast more of a stunt than a strategy change. She added that if it helps retain new viewers, Tubi could host more live events down the line.
“If there’s opportunities where we can bring a frictionless entertainment experience to viewers, we’ll always vet them,” Parlapiano said.
