Texas Rangers and Anaheim Ducks Reportedly Leaving Victory+ Amid Financing Concerns
The world of regional sports networks and their broadcasting rights continues to be a challenging one
The home of Stars broadcasts is experiencing some rare turmoil this week, as at least two teams in its fold are reportedly leaving the Victory+ platform.
On Wednesday, we learned about the Texas Rangers’ jumping ship effective immediately. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported today that the Rangers will be moving from Victory+ to BZZR as of this Friday, following the All Star break. BZZR is a new streaming platform the name of which I don’t know how to pronounce, and which also doesn’t appear to have a television app yet. One would expect that such an app is being worked on behind the scenes.
As Rangers’ broadcaster Jared Sandler said today, this was apparently a move the Rangers made out of necessity, not an opportunistic one:
That necessity, as Grant also mentioned in the DMN piece, was related to “growing concerns about the viability and financial solvency of Victory+.” As Sports Business Journal reported today as well, Victory+ has been unable to secure as much additional financing as they had hoped to do, and that’s led to the platform encountering issues in making minimum payments to teams whose games it’s broadcasting—an issue eerily similar to what happened in the final days of RSNs like Bally Sports before teams like the Stars and Rangers left those platforms.
Per SBJ, Victory+ was in conversations with some NBA teams about broadcasting their games, but the inability to secure additional financing coupled with the NBA’s developing a centralized league broadcasting solution for the 2027-28 season meant that partnering with teams for only one year ultimately meant that any such short-term move wouldn’t be worth it.
From everything that’s out there, it sounds like the Rangers were concerned that Victory+ would be unable to meet its financial obligations, which would in turn put the Rangers’ ability to meet its own contractual broadcasting obligations in jeopardy. Thus, the Rangers moved to another platform in the short term to ensure the continued broadcast of their games rather than risk further uncertainty with Victory+.
Alex Silverman also reports that the NHL is setting up a similar sort of league-controlled broadcasting platform for a few teams caught in RSN no-man’s land for the upcoming season. The nature of that platform is still unclear, though as of a few months ago, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had said the approach would be more of a supportive one than the fully-formed streaming platform like other leagues are planning to do.
It sounds like the lack of additional financing for Victory+ has begun to show up in the present for other teams as well, as the Anaheim Ducks are also leaving the platform this season, per Sports Business Journal:
As part of the launch of the Rangers Sports Network in early 2025, the Rangers had chosen Victory+ as their initial DTC partner and offered fans a yearly paid subscription option. Since February, however, Victory+ has had difficulty securing additional financing. And according to multiple sources, Victory+ has had trouble making its minimum guarantee payments to teams in multiple leagues.
Victory+ has streamed games free for the NHL’s Stars and Ducks and WNBA’s Lynx and Dream. However, the Ducks have informed Victory+ that they plan to terminate their agreement with the company as well. It is unclear whether the Stars will remain with Victory+. In the case of the Lynx and Dream, those teams do not receive a minimum guarantee and are merely in an advertising revenue share with Victory+.
-Sports Business Journal
7/15/26
The Stars and Ducks were something of a success story last season, by all accounts, as the teams found a relatively smooth solution in the uncertain world following the collapse of the RSN model. That success was short-lived, it would seem.
You can read more about the Ducks’ decision here, but this excerpt was especially pertinent.
The Ducks have informed streaming platform Victory+ that they intend to terminate their local streaming agreement, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. The team, which had two more seasons remaining on its deal with Victory+, is in the process of finding another direct-to-consumer streaming partner for the 2026-27 season […] Multiple sources told SBJ that Victory+ has missed rights payments to several of its partners in recent months.
-Sports Business Journal
7/15/26
Victory+ (APMC) has yet to return requests for comment. As for the Dallas Stars, the team told me today that things are “status quo” between them and Victory+ right now. We’ll see what happens as the NHL season approaches.
(The Stars understandably declined to comment on proceedings between the Rangers and Victory+.)
Stars President and CEO Brad Alberts had mentioned some concerns about the economics behind the Stars’ free broadcasting model for Victory+ when he spoke with me a couple of weeks ago, but there was no mention of teams leaving the platform at that point.
For the time being, the Stars will apparently be broadcasting games on Victory+ when the NHL season starts, but a lot of things are still unclear. We’ll have more on this story as it develops, as it is sure to do.
As an out-of-market fan (even further than Austin... I'm in Chicago), I'd honestly consider paying a reasonable monthly sub if it meant getting all the local Stars broadcasts (and finally canceling ESPN+).
I know it still wouldn't include the national broadcasts, but at least I'd get the NHL Network games too—right now those are just dark nights for me. I actually set up a Victory+ account a while back hoping it'd be an option... alas.
Maybe a paid out-of-market tier could make that happen? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Granted, that doesn't solve the much bigger problem for the vast majority of fans who are actually in Dallas (or the greater V+ broadcast area)... and I don't think my subscription fee is going to save the business. 😅)
What's scary to me living in the Austin area is that I won't get many games without the streaming model. I had rekindled my love of the Stars with Victory Plus where I could actually see games. Before that down here we only got a handful of games because my cable company was in a fight with Fox Sport Southwest or whoever it was that carried Stars games so we didn't get them at all, Rangers too. I hope the Stars if not on Victory Plus find a way to let us Out of market people still watch our team.