Fubo has rescinded its multi-million-dollar offers to the 13 NBA teams searching for new local broadcast homes, multiple sources told SBJ Wednesday, leaving those franchises with one less option as they pursue single-year, stop-gap broadcasts deals for the 2026-27 season.
Disney-owned Fubo on Wednesday contacted the former Main Street Sports Group teams -- Hawks, Hornets, Cavaliers, Pistons, Pacers, Clippers, Grizzlies, Heat, Bucks, T-Wolves, Thunder, Magic, and Spurs -- to say their board had voted to revoke its recent bids to house local NBA games due to what sources called uncertainty surrounding proposed minimum guarantees.
According to multiple industry sources, Fubo’s offers to teams for the 2026-27 season had ranged from $8M to as much as $20M, which apparently exceeded bids from competitors DAZN (which offered between $8M and $15M) and Victory+ (which is still pursuing financing). But with Fubo now out of the picture, those industry sources believe most teams are leaning toward airing games next season on over-the-air stations -- as the Pistons and Scripps announced earlier Wednesday -- or through DAZN’s streaming service.
A crucial issue is the length of the contracts. With the NBA expected to launch a consolidated home for local broadcasts in time for the 2027-28 season, teams are looking to do either one-year local broadcast deals or packages with one-year out clauses. But according to sources, Fubo’s board revoked its offers because they could not agree to early termination options for those clubs.
For that reason, sources believe the OTA option along with a coinciding DTC app -- a model currently implemented by the Suns, Jazz, Mavericks, Trail Blazers and Pelicans -- is the most feasible and popular one-year plan to tide the teams over until the league platform launches.
But DAZN is offering one-year escape clauses, as well, and has the billion-dollar backing of CEO Shay Segev -- who has made it clear DAZN would also like to bid to become the NBA’s streaming hub for that 2027-28 season or whenever that time comes.
Amazon and YouTube are also interested in the national streaming RSN. So was Fubo, until its board pulled the plug Wednesday.
Fubo’s model had been attractive to several teams. Besides the minimum guarantee, its plan was to do direct-to-distributer deals with cable and satellite entities for linear reach and possibly broadcast 10 to 15 games OTA.
But sources suspected the Fubo board believed that -- with the national streaming hub looming in 2027-28 -- a potential one-year-only investment with prohibitive minimal guarantees wasn’t fiscally prudent.
Fubo was not immediately available for comment.