The local sports streaming landscape is coming into focus, with Prime Video and DAZN emerging as the main contenders and Victory+ going bust.
Prime Video has acquired exclusive local streaming rights to six NHL teams, it was announced Wednesday, with the Blue Jackets, Blues, Hurricanes, Wild, Ducks and Stars joining a portfolio that already included the Kraken. Four of the six teams had deals last season with Main Street Sports Group, operator of the FanDuel Sports Network RSNs, which has since begun winding down its operations. (As such, those teams’ games were already available on Prime Video, which offered the FanDuel Sports Network app.)
The two others — the Stars and Ducks — were with Victory+ last season, but that service has now officially shuttered, as first reported Tuesday by Ishmael Johnson of the Dallas Morning News. (The Stars’ departure from Victory+ was first reported Monday by Sam Nestler of DLLS Sports.)
Victory+ had lost most of its major-league clients in recent weeks, which in addition to the Stars and Ducks included the MLB Rangers and the NWSL, due to reported non-payment of rights fees. Per Lia Assimakopoulos of the Morning News, Stars president and CEO Brad Alberts said Wednesday that Victory+ has terminated all remaining employees and filed for receivership in Canada.
The Rangers were the first to exit their deal, doing so abruptly midseason at the MLB All-Star break, followed by the Ducks and NWSL. But it was the departure of the Stars, who were the first team to partner with Victory+ and held part ownership of the network, that evidently proved to be the finishing blow.
Alberts detailed the collapse of Victory+ to reporters Wednesday, saying that his team had not received “98%” of the money it was owed over the past year, as quoted by Assimakopoulos. “Hundreds of people’s lives were impacted by this, and a lot of money was lost, and it shouldn’t have happened,” he said. The team lost money in the “double-digit millions,” with Alberts citing “financial mismanagement.” When the team was asked to save Victory+ with additional investment, owner Tom Gaglardi decided — in Alberts’ words — not to “chase good money at bad.”
In striking terms, Alberts further described the situation as “gut-wrenching” and lamented the impact on both investors (“CEOs from Dallas that really put their own money into this and lost it all”) and fans. “We did everything we could to try to save this, to try to protect this for our fan base, so they did not have to change and did not have to get an Amazon Prime account. … I feel for people that now have to get an Amazon Prime account.”
Before its collapse, Victory+ had been mentioned as a potential landing spot for the various NBA and NHL teams left without a broadcast partner due to the collapse of Main Street Sports Group. Instead, many of those teams have been opting for the London-based streamer DAZN and now Prime.
New this week, DAZN has announced deals to become the exclusive rights partner of the NBA Cavaliers and Spurs. There are now four NBA teams whose local rights belong exclusively to DAZN, with the Pacers and Timberwolves having previously reached agreements with the service. Though DAZN is the exclusive rights partner, it is allowing teams to simulcast some games over-the-air, including 15 for Cavaliers and 22 for the Spurs. (The Pacers, as previously noted, will also simulcast 22 over the air.)
DAZN will also hold local streaming rights to the Wizards, Knicks and Nets — and the Yankees, Capitals, Rangers, Islanders and Sabres — this season, via deals to become the streaming home of the Monumental Sports, MSG and YES Network RSNs. Those teams, it should be noted, have been available on Prime Video under previous deals with those RSNs. (The Yankees also have a separate deal with Prime Video to carry select games.)
Additional teams are expected to join DAZN as part of a hybrid linear-streaming model, including the Hornets and Magic, Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal has reported. The Magic, who on Tuesday unveiled a new regional deal with Gray Media to go along with previously-announced agreements with Cox and Hearst stations, said in that announcement that a “direct-to-consumer streaming partner” will be revealed “in the near future.”
Between its various deals with NBA teams and RSNs, DAZN could end up with 15 “Big Four” major league teams for the coming seasons. Prime, between its new NHL deals and existing agreements with RSNs, currently has 32 — though as previously noted, some of those teams are slated to shift to DAZN.
With the NBA and MLB planning centralized local streaming hubs as soon as next year, any deals with teams in those leagues are expected to be as short as one-year. The NHL’s future plans are less clear. The Stars’ Alberts, per the Dallas Morning News, said he anticipates Prime Video being the “home for Stars broadcasts for the next 2, 3, 4 years,” adding, “God help me if we have to change this again any time sooner.”
