Two months after the Stars became the first North Texas pro sports team to settle on its post-Bally Sports direction, the Mavericks have chosen their own very different path. The team announced a multi-year agreement with Tegna today that will see at least 70 non-nationally broadcasted games air on KMPX Channel 29. (The Spanish language content currently airing there will migrate to a different channel.) Continuing a trend that began midway through the 2023-2024 season, at least 15 of those 70 will also air on WFAA, which will now be the team’s official broadcast partner. That means free Mavs games for everyone.
A Tegna press release claims that the new arrangement will allow games to reach 10 million people in Texas, or triple the number under the old Bally agreement. That feels about right. Bally Sports Southwest was available on a grand total of two cable networks and one streaming service. And Tegna will broadcast games in smaller markets such as Waco, Tyler, Midland-Odessa, San Angelo, and Abilene.
But the real story isn’t the lack of a bottom-line figure to watch Mavs games; that’s where everything is going. With the regional sports network bubble bursting, teams have come to understand there is no way to replicate the gargantuan upfront rights fees that regional sports networks were paying to broadcast the games. The hedge is availability. Free TV means more eyeballs, which in turn means more advertisers and more opportunities to create brand-loyal customers who eventually will funnel their dollars back to the team in the form of ticket and merchandise sales. Everyone’s simpatico there.
What’s notable, though, is the American Airlines Center co-tenants are betting on different ways to maximize the revenue potential of the free viewing experience. Rather than go over the air, the Stars chose to build their own streaming platform, Victory+. I recommend reading my conversation with team president Brad Alberts from July for the full scoop on why the Stars went that route, but Alberts made no bones about declaring that “we feel like direct-to-consumer and streaming is where the future of television and local sports is.”
The Mavs may not necessarily disagree. President Cynt Marshall told the Morning News’ Brad Townsend the team will look to build a streaming service of its own as the next phase of its broadcast strategy. But they’re not committing the whole operation to the idea, either. That comes with less risk, as well as less upside: maintaining full control of your rights, schedule, and programming comes with a lot of maneuverability.
For the time being, those appear to be the two viable paths forward, which means that the Stars and Mavs’ early years on these new tracks will double as a referendum on who is staking the right horse. Whatever that ends up being, you can expect more teams both in and out of North Texas to shift accordingly. Either way, the consumers are the big winners. No one is paying for any of this, which is a welcome change from everyone paying for all of it. Just don’t expect this to be the last time you’ll be changing your viewing habits to accommodate one of your favorite teams’ games.
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