In recent months, FuboTV has been working hard on expanding its lineup of live streaming channels to better compete with the likes of Sling TV and PlayStation Vue. But the company is making it clear it has not forgotten the sports fans who flocked to its live TV service in the early years: This year marks the first time the provider will be carrying the entire NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, starting March 7 with the early rounds and quarterfinals, to the championship game on April 8. It’s also offering up something that can be hard to find on any TV service: 4K broadcasts of specific Big East Tournament and Big Ten Tournament games. FuboTV claims it’s not only the sole streaming service with 4K coverage of NCAA basketball, but it’s also among just a few 4K options, period.
As cool as 4K streaming is, don’t get too excited. Only a small handful of games will be broadcast in this format, and only during Championship Week (March 13-17). More importantly, if you want to see these games in 4K, you’ll need a compatible device. FuboTV has good support for major streaming devices, like the Apple TV 4K, Chromecast Ultra, Roku 4K-compatible streamers and TVs, and Amazon’s 4K-compatible Fire TV devices. Android TV-equipped streamers and TVs like Nvidia’s Shield TV is a notable omission from the list.
FuboTV has been streaming select programs in 4K/HDR since beginning its 4K beta in July of 2018, and as of today, is still the only live streaming service to do so. The platform was built on proprietary software, unlike many of the other live streaming services, which licensed their technology from third parties. It was a risky choice, but one that has apparently delivered substantial benefits. Its lead in the 4K space makes a compelling argument for the decision, as does the fact that FuboTV hasn’t experienced outages during big events, as Hulu and PlayStation Vue did during the 2018 Super Bowl.
As important as 4K/HDR coverage is, even more important from a sports perspective is the ability to watch in 60 frames per second. There’s no point being able to see every pore on your favorite player’s face if those pores become a massive blur the moment they burst into action. The NCAA 4K streams will be in 60 fps, as will any games carried by these FuboTV channels.
For a complete rundown on what FuboTV has to offer, and what its different plans will cost, check out our full FuboTV explainer.
Updated with greater detail on FuboTV’s 60 fps coverage of the games, and that the games will be in 4K, not 4K and HDR as previously reported.
FuboTV: channels, price, plans, packages, and add-ons
If you're a sports fan, FuboTV may be the answer to your cord-cutting dreams. What is FuboTV? It's a live streaming service that focuses mainly on sports-focused live TV and can help you quit cable for good. And it's very much growing in popularity, currently sitting in fourth place in the U.S. with about 1.23 million subscribers.
FuboTV's pricing and plans -- and even the channels available -- are competitive with services that are many times its size. And that's what's great about the whole streaming space: You have options. That's also the hard part. It can be tough to tell the difference between FuboTV and Hulu With Live TV. Or FuboTV versus YouTube TV. What makes one stand out above the others?
YouTube TV did 4K sports right — so maybe it’s time to cancel it
Let us stipulate a few things: When it comes to video, higher resolution is better. Sure, there are diminishing returns — I wouldn't go out and buy an 8K television just yet. But going from 720p to 1080p is a huge leap in quality. Maybe a little less so when you go from 1080p to 4K, but that's also very much going to depend on your circumstances — television size, what room you're in, etc.
And one more stipulation: 4K for World Cup 2022 was pretty much a necessity. If you've ever watched live sports in 4K, you probably already knew that. FuboTV has had some live sports for years now, and YouTube TV — which is the most popular live service in the U.S., and more than five times larger than FuboTV with more than 5 million subscribers at last count — has had it as an option since the summer of 2021. You also could watch in 4K via the Fox Sports app, provided that you already had a subscription to a cable, satellite, or streaming service.
FuboTV says ‘cybercriminal attack’ behind World Cup outage
FuboTV today said that a "cybercriminal attack" was behind a widespread outage that occurred during the December 14 World Cup semifinal between France and Morocco.
"The incident was not related to any bandwidth constraints on Fubo's part," the company said in a press release on December 15. "FuboTV takes this matter very seriously. Once we detected the attack, we immediately took steps to contain the incident and worked to restore service to all of our users as quickly as possible. Service was fully restored by [Wednesday] evening."
