- Stars plan to move game broadcasts from Victory+ to Amazon Prime Video, per DLLS Sports
- Dallas would become the second NHL team streaming local games on Prime, joining Seattle
- Read below for what changes for fans and why Victory+ is coming apart
Dallas Stars games are headed to Amazon Prime Video.
Sam Nestler reported Monday that multiple sources told DLLS Sports the Stars plan to pull their game broadcasts off Victory+ and hand them to Prime Video, plus “potentially one other platform,” starting this season. The team declined to comment.
Victory+ has been bleeding partners all year. The Texas Rangers left for BZZR, the Anaheim Ducks moved to terminate their contract in July, and a handful of early-season high school football broadcasts got dropped this month.
Missed payments and money problems trailed most of those exits. Nestler wrote that signs point toward Victory+ shutting down altogether, two years into a seven-year agreement with A Parent Media Co. Inc.
Fans lose something real in the swap. Victory+ was free and easy to find around DFW at a time when blackouts still lock plenty of NHL fans out of their own teams.
Prime games would not be free. They would ride along with an Amazon Prime subscription millions of households already pay for, which is a bigger built-in audience than Victory+ ever had.
Seattle got there first. The Kraken announced this summer that their non-national games stream on Prime Video for qualifying Prime members in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, with over-the-air coverage through TEGNA stations alongside it.
Nationally, Dallas is set for 13 appearances this season, one of the heavier loads in the league. Check out the team’s rundown of where to find them:
That number puts them near the top of the league’s national TV pecking order, a long way from the teams sitting at zero.
Amazon is not new to hockey either. The company has carried weekly NHL games in Canada for two seasons and produces “FACEOFF: Inside the NHL,” the docuseries that famously cut its Stars subjects from season two.
Plenty is still unsettled. Nestler noted there is no word yet on whether preseason games are part of the package, or what happens to the broadcast crew, and the Stars open the preseason on Sept. 19 in St. Louis before hosting the Blues on Oct. 2.
