Notre Dame’s Streaming Service Shows Potential

Notre Dame’s brand is one of the strongest in sports, and its new venture — Fighting Irish TV — builds upon that by offering fans more content to binge.

The school’s streaming service is available on Apple TV, Google Play, and Amazon and includes everything from live games and interviews to archived games and highlights.

• Notre Dame’s pro day generated more than 58,000 minutes of viewed content in one day on the platform.
• The school is now considering a subscription model, though it’s not clear how much they would charge.

Because the Fighting Irish have no conference affiliation, they were able to sell broadcasting rights to NBC in 1991.

NBC’s most recent extension with Notre Dame was signed in 2013, began in 2016, and runs through the 2025 season. It’s worth a reported $15 million annually.

However, the school still makes sacrifices to stay independent. “There is no financial advantage to Notre Dame being independent in terms of operations,” Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick told The Athletic in 2019. “It costs us money. We would be much better off all-in with the ACC or any Power 5 conference.”

Andrew Focil, founder of WMT — the web developer Fighting Irish TV launched with — thinks other teams can get in on the OTT action, adding that conversations are already in the works.