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Fox Corporation is betting that live TV still matters — it just needs a better app

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Fox Corporation is betting that live TV still matters — it just needs a better app

TL;DR

Quick Summary

  • Fox launched FOX One on August 21, 2025 at $19.99/month, aiming to bring its live-first portfolio (news + sports + broadcast) to cord-cutters in one app.
  • Tubi scaled past 100 million monthly active users by June 2025, making Fox a serious player in free, ad-supported streaming.
  • ESPN’s newly finalized NFL Network deal (February 2026) signals leagues want more leverage—important for every network that relies on sports.

#RealTalk

Fox is trying to turn “live TV” from a cable habit into a streaming product, without losing what makes it valuable: urgency. The bet is that convenience—not content scarcity—is the new battleground.

Bottom Line

For investors, Fox looks less like a legacy broadcaster and more like a two-track media business: paid live streaming via FOX One and scaled ad streaming via Tubi. The big question isn’t whether streaming is the future—it’s whether Fox can keep premium sports and news economics working as the industry’s power dynamics keep shifting.

Fox’s new pitch: stop fighting the future, bundle it

If you’ve ever watched a live game through a maze of logins, cable credentials, and “this content isn’t available in your area” messages, Fox Corporation has a theory: the problem isn’t that people don’t want live TV. The problem is that live TV has been delivered like it’s still 2009.

Fox Corporation (FOX) has spent the past year tightening its identity around a simple idea: it owns the kinds of programming people still show up for in real time—news, sports, and big broadcast moments—and it wants to make that feel native to a streaming-first world.

That’s why FOX One exists. And it’s why the sports-media chessboard moving this week matters to Fox even when Fox isn’t the one making the move.

FOX One: the “cord-cutters welcome” reboot

On August 21, 2025, Fox launched FOX One, its wholly-owned direct-to-consumer streaming service, priced at $19.99/month or $199.99/year, with a 7-day free trial. The product bundles Fox’s core brands—FOX News, FOX Business, FOX Weather, FOX Sports, FS1/FS2, Big Ten Network, local stations, and the FOX broadcast network—into one app designed explicitly for households outside the traditional cable bundle.

FOX also positioned FOX One as a modern “live-first” experience, leaning into features like unlimited cloud DVR-style recording, highlight catch-up, and personalized feeds. The big strategic tell: this isn’t Fox trying to out-Netflix Netflix. It’s Fox trying to own the “I need it live” category, while making the mechanics less painful.

And Fox didn’t pretend it’s doing this alone. It announced that starting October 2, 2025, customers could bundle FOX One with ESPN’s direct-to-consumer offering for $39.99/month—a reminder that the streaming era is increasingly about bundles again, just with apps instead of cable boxes.

Tubi is the quiet growth engine people underestimate

If FOX One is the premium front door, Tubi is the high-traffic side entrance.

In January 2025, Fox said Tubi passed 97 million monthly active users and streamed 10 billion hours during calendar year 2024. By June 2025, Fox said Tubi exceeded 100 million monthly active users, and in May 2025 alone it topped 1 billion hours of viewing time. Fox also pointed to Nielsen’s The Gauge, saying Tubi reached 2.2% of total U.S. TV viewing minutes in May 2025.

The cultural point here is bigger than “free streaming is popular.” Tubi is where a lot of younger, price-sensitive viewing lives—free, algorithm-friendly, and ad-supported. In a world where subscription fatigue is real, “free and good enough” can scale faster than “another $15.99.”

Why ESPN’s NFL Network deal is a signal flare for everyone

This week, ESPN (owned by The Walt Disney Company, DIS) finalized its acquisition of NFL Network and related digital assets, with the NFL taking a 10% equity stake in ESPN. That’s not just a headline for Disney—it’s a sign that the leagues are still rewriting the rules of sports distribution.

For Fox, sports is both a superpower and a dependency. When the market structure shifts—who owns which channels, who bundles what, and how much leverage leagues get—it changes the negotiating temperature for everyone. Even if Fox’s biggest sports relationships don’t change overnight, the direction is clear: the NFL (and other leagues) want a bigger cut of the upside and more say in how the product reaches fans.

What Fox is really selling to investors in 2026

Fox isn’t trying to be the biggest entertainment company on your home screen. It’s trying to be the most essential one when something is happening right now.

FOX One is the company admitting the cable bundle is shrinking—and choosing to package its “live” identity into a subscription app. Tubi is the company meeting the free, ad-driven internet where it actually lives. And the sports ecosystem’s constant reshuffling is the reminder that Fox’s strongest content category is also the one with the most powerful counterparties.

That mix can work. But it only works if Fox keeps doing what streaming giants sometimes forget: making the product feel easy, immediate, and worth showing up for.