Still basking in the glow of their Stanley Cup win, the Florida Panthers will enter their upcoming defense of the chalice with a new streaming partner in addition to their new local broadcaster.
The champs have announced a partnership with ViewLift to develop its new direct-to-consumer streaming platform ahead of the 2024-25 NHL season. The service will let Panthers fans stream live game broadcasts from Scripps Sports and team-related content within the South Florida region through mobile devices, connected TVs and on the web.
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The service comes just over a month after the Panthers officially signed a local broadcast agreement with Scripps Sports after spending nearly 30 years with Bally Sports Florida and its predecessors. Games not shown on national TV will be televised on Scripps’ affiliate stations WSFL-TV (Ch. 39) in Miami/Fort Lauderdale and WHDT-TV (Ch. 9) in West Palm Beach. A Fort Myers affiliate has yet to be announced.
Time is of the essence for the Panthers, who already had a shorter offseason than most teams due to their Cup run. “We’re in a bit of a sprint to get to Opening Night,” Mark Zathar, the team’s chief strategy officer, said in a phone interview. “We came to our agreement with Scripps fairly recently, and so that gives us a pretty short window to put something together. ViewLift proved, with past projects, that they have the ability to move at a rapid pace. That made us feel very comfortable getting prepared for Opening Night. They’re flexible, they’re innovative.”
New York-based ViewLift has previously partnered with the Vegas Golden Knights and the Washington Capitals for their over-the-top streamers. The company’s website also lists the NHL itself, LIV Golf and Italy’s National Basketball League (Lega Nazionale Pallacanestro) as clients.
ViewLift CEO Rick Allen said his management team’s experience in the linear TV world helped their team clients navigate the streaming waters. “We believe that digital has to be complementary to linear, and we’re very comfortable working with a linear partner,” Allen said in a video interview. “We understand what they need to be successful, and so we lean into that in a way that’s helpful to teams.”
In a press release, the Panthers said real-time data that comes with the platform will help the team continually find ways to improve the viewing experience for fans.
“What makes direct-to-consumer so exciting for these teams is the data that they, for the first time, will have on their fans … just hasn’t existed,” Allen said. “The great promise of digital is that you can get down to very granular, specific fans to understand who they are, what they’re watching, what else they’re doing with your team, and form a real perspective.”
Zathar says while the priority in year one is for ViewLift to be ready for live games, the Panthers’ weekly TV show, which had previously been inaccessible for some fans, will live alongside game replays, classic games and bespoke digital content. “If fans aren’t able to view it live on television when it premieres,” he said of the show, “they know that it’ll be stored on our DTC app. It’s a nice hub for all of our content, particularly our long-form content that might not have been accessible in other places.”
Several pro sports teams have moved away from the regional sports channel model, with nearly all of them pulling out of agreements with Diamond Sports Group. The Panthers are one of four NHL teams to have gotten out of the DSG umbrella since 2023 along with the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans. Florida is also the second consecutive Stanley Cup champion that has moved to Scripps, which picked up the Golden Knights in 2023.
The holding firm for the Bally Sports channels recently inked a deal with Comcast, bringing its channels back onto the cable operator after a lengthy blackout but on the pricier Ultimate TV tier. However, DSG has yet to return to Altice customers since their agreement expired at midnight on July 1. A confirmation hearing for Diamond’s reorganization plans that was originally set for July 29 has yet to be rescheduled.
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