In June, the University Interscholastic League announced that Victory+ would exclusively broadcast all 12 of its state championship games, which began Wednesday morning with Class 1A Division I, for free.
The Dallas Morning News spoke with Victory+ chief operating officer Jason Walsh on Wednesday to discuss the platform’s vision for Texas high school football broadcasts, expansion opportunities and its scholarship initiatives. Walsh was previously the executive producer at Fox Southwest, later branded Bally Southwest and FanDuel Southwest.
On December 14, Victory+ announced that it had awarded the True Champion Scholarship to DeMazzi Pattern of Pleasant Grove High School. The prize was worth $10,000 and was given to recognize an athlete who gives back to their community.
“To have a personal connection with a lot of these coaches, to hear the stories about what they go through, to mold these young people, and to see that they’re resources,” Walsh said. “And to give back a little bit and say, we love what you’re doing too. You’ve appreciated us by your viewership and to have that relationship is very rewarding for me, professionally and personally.”
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They are also in the final week of the Victory Formation Challenge which will reward a total of $100,000 to schools who generate the most viewership over the course of the entire playoffs.
Here’s what Walsh said about the network, including the eye-popping viewership number for this week’s high school football games that he said would constitute a success.
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This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Q: Victory+ was aggressive putting the Rangers, Stars and Anaheim Ducks on its platform. What made Texas high school football one of the early targets, too?
In 2016 when I started [at Fox Sports Southwest], I fell in love with high school football and broadcasting these games.
And even though I grew up in Texas, and I went to Duncanville High School, and I knew all about Texas high school football, getting the chance to be a part of those games on broadcast, I loved it. It’s one of my favorite things to do.
We have big plans for MLB, NBA and NHL, and we’re doing this dance right now, too, with what’s happening for when these rights become available and what’s happening to the old broadcast model with the RSNs (Regional Sports Networks).
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I wanted to target Texas high school football because I know the power that it brings. I know that the grassroots initiatives, from a marketing standpoint, are really important, and I knew viewership was going to be there.
Q: Did you have any discussion about sacrificing the linear (television), because that’s how a lot of people traditionally watch high school football games?
No, it wasn’t a battle. We discussed what all the methods of distribution are, and that fracturing the marketplace and putting it in a variety of different places causes confusion. Whereas what you can do is you can say, we are here. We are already on your TVs. We are on your phone. We are on your iPad.
A lot has been made about trying to change consumer mindsets about all streaming, like this is this new concept. Streaming is not really a new concept. It’s been around a while, and I think people generally understand it. I think when you make it free and you give people a really great broadcast product, they’ll find it. I’m watching the viewership live right now, exactly how many people are watching, and they have found us.
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Q: Victory+ announced scholarships for the schools with the highest viewership during the playoffs. How is that going to be calculated, and will the numbers be public?
First of all, APMC (A Parent Media Co.), which is the parent company for Victory+, is a very philanthropic organization. At its core, they like to give back. We try to separate ourselves from any other place you might consume content. You have a chance to win.
Our CEO feels very strongly about that. So as we were nearing the end of the high school football season, he said I want to give some of these schools an opportunity to win money. If they can get as many people as possible watching Texas high school playoffs, we will pay back to the school.
We also understand that we want to be a partner with the school districts or the individual schools in a variety of ways and if that means we can give back financially, in some cases, we’re willing to do that.
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Q: What do you see as the growth potential for high school sports on Victory+?
We are already having conversations in other states about high school football. We’re getting asked a lot of questions.
Once we can establish that this model works, that we have the viewership and we got our feet under us, then we would love to have the discussion about expanding into basketball, into baseball, and girls volleyball and other things.
Q: You have your own target metrics. What constitutes success?
Success would be viewership higher than what was available via Bally Sports Southwest.
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When I started this, looking at the numbers, I took 2023, which was the last year I fully worked at Bally and did the championship games. I took the 2023 Nielsen ratings, and I took the Houston, San Antonio and Dallas markets where we had ratings, and looked at everything, of course, across all the games. And I saw that a quarter million people watched Texas high school championship games.
A success will be tripling that number, and I already believe, based on looking at the first six-man game, that we’re easily going to double. I’m very excited about the possibility of tripling that number. Free and full distribution is the key.
Q: You’re confident it being free will potentially open a floodgate for an audience?
I think it’s two things. First, yes, cost is absolutely on everybody’s mind, and the fatigue that goes along with that is real. The second part of that goes back to distribution. If you go through our platform, you don’t have to worry about the fact that YouTube TV might decide to cancel our network, or that every single day it’s “DirectTV this” or “ABC is having problems with this carrier.”
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That doesn’t happen in our world. We were able to sidestep that so you get a reliable, trusted broadcast partner that’s gonna be there every day.
Q: You work with the Stars, Rangers and the Ducks as well. Is that the model, team specific? Or do you eventually want something with a league, say MLB, for a package?
I would say that we aren’t here to replace the RSN model. We’re here to create whatever the new model is. We can be regional. We can go team-by-team. We can take on an entire league.
We took on the entire Western Hockey League, that’s 700 broadcasts right now that we’re in the middle of airing. We just signed a deal with the National Women’s Soccer League, and we are going to be the exclusive partner for 25 national Sunday night broadcasts, but we’re also having conversations with each team about their regional broadcasts.
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We have the ability to be regional, we can be national and in some cases, we can be global.
Q: What was that conversation like with the THSCA (Texas High School Coaches Association) to have them be the brand sponsor for the game of the week you did this season?
We have been having that discussion for years and we had that discussion even over with Bally and FanDuel. One of the problems that we had was we couldn’t guarantee the distribution of the game every single week because we had the Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars and the Texas Rangers. At that time, we really only had two distribution channels. You had the main Fox Southwest channel, and you had (Fox Sports) Plus.
But when you move to this arena (streaming), where I could show 1,000 shows at one time, removing that barrier allowed us to finally get to where we’ve talked about for such a long time. Joe Martin (THSCA President) played an integral role in believing in us and me and the willingness to put their brand alongside our brand, we felt that was a landmark moment for us getting into the high school space.
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