The streaming service Victory+ appears to be assembling its pitch deck one WNBA franchise at a time.
Days after announcing a deal with the Minnesota Lynx, the free, ad-supported platform has added the Atlanta Dream to its portfolio, securing the right to stream the team's local games this season. The agreement, reached in what both sides described as remarkably swift fashion, took shape over roughly two weeks — a timeline that would make most media rights negotiations look positively glacial.
Katie Boes, the chief content officer for Victory+, first contacted Andrea Bailey, the Dream's chief revenue officer, on April 14. By the time the season opener arrived on Saturday (against the Lynx, in one of those scheduling coincidences the basketball gods occasionally arrange), the ink was dry on a one-year contract.
Like the Lynx deal, the Dream agreement contains no minimum guarantee, relying instead on an advertising revenue share. Unlike the Lynx arrangement, however, the Dream's games will also appear on linear over-the-air television through Gray Media's WANF Atlanta News First, with production handled by Rush Media Company. Victory+ will not produce the broadcasts itself, a concession to the compressed timeline.
"And we benefit from the fact that the Lynx were first and some of the legal pieces were already in the works," Ms. Bailey said.
For Victory+, which is actively courting three to five N.B.A. teams and seeking investors to finance its model, the W.N.B.A. deals serve a purpose beyond the games themselves. They are, in effect, proof of concept — a way to demonstrate that the template functions before asking for larger checks.
For the Dream, the calculus is more immediate. The franchise operates in the league's smallest venue (3,500 seats at Gateway Center Arena), with the fewest premium seats (187) and an average gate receipt last season of $232,000 — second lowest in the W.N.B.A. Additional revenue streams, even modest ones, matter.
"If you've obviously followed what's happening with the R.S.N.s, there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow right now where there used to be," Ms. Bailey said. (She did not need to elaborate; the regional sports network landscape has provided its own commentary.)
The Dream have also hired Chris Lee, formerly of the Chargers and AMB Sports and Entertainment, as vice president of corporate partnership development — a move Ms. Bailey suggested could eventually allow the team to bring some media sales in-house rather than relying entirely on Victory+.
Neil Gruninger, the Victory+ chief executive, cited the Dream's 30-win season and the arrival of Angel Reese as reasons for optimism.
The Lynx, meanwhile, are testing a streaming-only approach with Victory+, televising only select games over the air. The Dream chose both paths.
"We've got a fiduciary responsibility to the ownership and to the valuation of our overall team," Ms. Bailey said, "to be able to bring in the most revenue as possible."
Which is, in the end, why most of these deals get made.
Original story published in sportsbusinessjournal.com: "Victory+ adds Atlanta Dream to its WNBA portfolio"