A streamer with rights to games in the NHL, MLB, NWSL, WNBA, and high school football is dead, shortly after the NWSL and individual teams began dropping it over reported nonpayments.
A former producer at the company informed several Texas school districts of the news in an email Tuesday.
In the email, obtained by Front Office Sports, Brian Smith apologized “for the sudden notice” and said “[we] were blindsided by this news.”
“Unfortunately, Victory+ has been dissolved by its parent company A Parent Media Co (APMC),” Smith wrote to the districts, which were set to have their football games air on Victory+ this fall. “As a result, all operations have ceased and all personnel has been let go.”
The Dallas Morning News reported the existence of the email Tuesday. Neither Victory+ nor its Canadian owner responded to questions from Front Office Sports.
The Dallas-based streamer, founded in 2024, struck rights deals with teams and leagues across sports, including the Minnesota Lynx, Atlanta Dream, the St. Louis Blues, the volleyball league LOVB, the Western Hockey League, Inter Milan, Overtime, the Major Arena Soccer League, and Texas’s high school football ecosystem through the University Interscholastic League and the Texas High School Coaches Association.
But cracks began to show this summer, when the NWSL, Anaheim Ducks, and Texas Rangers all dropped Victory+, and the streamer demoted and replaced its CEO, Neil Gruninger. The Athletic reported the NWSL’s deal fell through due to nonpayments, and the league put some of those games on The Roku Sports Channel.
The Stars, who have an equity stake in Victory+, declined to comment about the collapse. The team will show games for the upcoming NHL season on Amazon Prime Video, according to its website.
The WNBA season is currently on hold for the World Cup. Play resumes in just over two weeks, and two remaining Lynx games and three Dream games are currently listed as airing on Victory+. The Lynx–Liberty game is currently listed as only airing on Victory+ in Minnesota; the team did not answer questions about where local fans could watch the game.
Victory+ offered games for free in local markets and mostly made its money by sharing ad revenue with teams, although it employed a paywall for Stars games. NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman touted the Victory+ deal as a way to make matches more accessible and reach new audiences. The Atlanta Dream called its deal with Victory+ a way to “meet our fans where they are and remove barriers to access.”
But it struggled without having exclusive rights for non-Stars games, with Victory+ often being one of several options for fans to watch.
“Our objectives were with that particular partner, and anyone we’d be evaluating, to provide it as an opportunity to invite new fans into the game,” Berman told reporters in August, before the Roku deal was announced. “We know that streaming and digital is a place where the next generation of fans live.”
