“We do big things here and we’re proud of that…And there’s a lot of teams that are going to be watching,” said Dallas Stars CEO Brad Alberts.
DALLAS — The Dallas Stars are going for the ultimate financial “power play.”
Months ago, with their former broadcasting partners in the bankruptcy box, the team decided to take a shot at streaming their own games on an app.
Dallas Stars President and CEO Brad Alberts explains, “We do big things here and we’re proud of that. And I think we’re again proud to try to pioneer this. And there’s a lot of teams that are going to be watching. As I told our staff…everybody’s going to be watching.”
That’s because this is a new and risky model.
Usually, a team gets millions of dollars from a regional sports network for the rights to air games. Then the network makes that up (and then some profit, ideally) by charging fans a subscription fee to watch those games.
But now, the Stars have taken the TV network out of the equation in an agreement to part ways with them. The team will produce its own games, which they will show – not on a traditional TV channel – but only through their app, which you can get on smart TVs, smartphones and tablets.
And they will do it all for free!
As far as we know, offering games for free and only through an app with no local TV broadcasting component has not been attempted by any other pro sports franchise.
The Stars hope to make up the revenue they won’t be getting from a TV broadcaster (and possibly even more than that) by selling their own ads that viewers will see during commercial breaks. Alberts says they will also aim to profit from what he calls, “Online revenue opportunities that probably didn’t exist in the past”.
What Victory+ will look like
Alberts also says the Stars will keep the same announcers for the games, “Josh and Razor are a big part of this. So yeah, we’re not really changing any of those things.”
If anything, Alberts says fans may notice that the games actually look better through the app than they did in broadcasts in past seasons.
“Our testing was fantastic … flawless. In some cases, what we saw on phones and on devices was better than what we were seeing on the TVs … coming across on cable TV.”
If you have a smart television, a smartphone, or a tablet where you can get apps like Netflix, Roku, Disney+, Hulu and the like, you can also add the Stars’ Victory+ app for free and you are ready to watch. They plan to show their upcoming games and potentially some historical games, behind-the-scenes stuff, maybe produce sports news there, and possibly even add content from other teams and other sports.
“There’s a lot out there, and we’re having some of those discussions now about other brands coming on board,” Alberts said.
He confirms that much of what he is talking about involves other local and regional teams, “I think all of that’s in play.”And not just hockey.
WFAA asked whether content on the app might include things like basketball, baseball, and football, and Alberts replied simply, but without revealing too much about ongoing discussions, “There’s opportunities for a lot of things.”
Stars haven’t totally shut the door on airing games on a local TV channel
Even though the Stars are making the leap to app-only right now, Alberts says the team may still eventually team up with a local TV station to show games on traditional television.
“We haven’t shut the door on that,” Alberts told WFAA. “We are having discussions about what I’ll call a smaller over-the-air package. And so we’re still identifying whether that makes sense. There’s nothing to report on that front yet.”
It really illustrates, though, that this plan is new and it is fluid. The Stars CEO says it may take the team two full seasons to fully tweak this whole change.
Mavs on WFAA!
That said, WFAA talked with Alberts about the team that shares the American Airlines Center with them. In case you haven’t heard the huge announcement, WFAA-TV is now your local broadcasting home for the Dallas Mavericks, thanks to a new multi-year broadcast rights agreement. All non-nationally televised Mavericks games – 70 or more of them this upcoming season – will be broadcast for free over-the-air on WFAA (Channel 8) or KMPX (Channel 29).
Other NBA teams have also been changing their business models and parting ways with pay-to-watch sports networks in favor of free-to-watch local television that gives them larger potential audiences. And of course, increasing the fan base is crucial to building their brands.
The Utah Jazz did it last season and reportedly saw an immediate 50% bump in the number of people watching their games. The Phoenix Suns also did it, and reportedly almost doubled the number of TV viewers for their games.
So, watch the Mavs this season on WFAA and KMPX every chance you get, because we can’t allow the Jazz or the Suns to beat the Mavericks in basketball or when it comes to TV viewership!
WFAA full interview with Dallas Stars President & CEO Brad Alberts
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