Sports — Streaming's First Frontier

July 9th, 1990. My first day at a new middle school. I was the only one who didn't show up.

I had stayed up into the wee hours of the morning watching Lothar Matth?us's Germany beat Maradona's Argentina 1-0 in the Fifa World Cup final. Watch the highlights.

I realise this gives away a lot about me. Yes, I didn't grow up in America. And yes, I watched way too much TV on a tiny black and white set. (Quick aside: My memory may be playing tricks on me, but the Macbook Air I'm writing this out on feels like it has a larger screen than that first TV.) And yes, I love watching sports. All sports. I am as much a fan of the kind of football Americans play with their hands as I am of cricket — the kind of baseball that the Indians play with a flat piece of wood.

The thing that's always been clear to me is how deeply sports and television are related. There is no real sports without television. And to be honest, there is no television without sports. And I don't just mean the major leagues. I'm including American Ninja and the Teletubbies and The Squid Games and anything even remotely 'sporty'.

There is something about human beings challenging themselves that appeals to us — more so if they are doing something we could potentially do (if only we had the right circumstances, coaches, genes and in my case being twenty years younger).

We are all fans. Whatever else we may be, however far apart we may be, we all come together SEAMLESSLY to support the same team.

And that right there is the power of sports.

But that power exists because for the longest time, sports came to our homes and was just playing on our televisions.

I can remember lazy summer afternoons spent watching sports on TV —?games that just happened to be on.

I became a fan because sports was on TV. You became a fan because sports was on TV.

And today, the sports that easily available and freely viewable isn't what we grew up watching.

It's e-sports. It's gaming. It's Mr. Beast's extravagant productions. It's Dude Perfect's trick shots. It's Youtube Golf (now that's a rabbit hole I've spent far too much time going down).

Today's kids are watching the sports we (the parents) are willing to pay for. But they're talking to each other about the games they can ALL watch together.

As a fan, I want the sports I love to live on, to take us on transformative emotional journeys, to continue to be a part of kid's childhood memories.

It's time for change.

This is why we are launching VICTORY+ — a free to watch, sports streaming service that will feature major league sports AND more. And these sports will (in most cases) ONLY be available on Victory+.

It's a world class platform with the kind of experience that cord-cutting, streaming first audiences are used to WITHOUT alienating older people who love their remote controls.

And it makes business sense — for the teams and for us.

Sports is the single most valuable piece of TV real estate. Advertisers are willing (and planning) to pay a premium to buy spots (or impressions). We know what the size of the paid audience looked like. And we know how many people couldn't watch the sports they love because they just didn't want to pay one more cable subscription addon fee.

Sports, it really is the first frontier. It's how we change the world to be a better place for fans.

Photo by Albert Dehon on Unsplash