The Ducks are partnering with VICTORY+ for the 2024-25 season and beyond to make their content––both on and off the ice––more accessible to their fans.

Neil Gruninger is looking to bring the present into the future. As president and CEO of A Parent Media Company (APMC) and co-founder of Kidoodle.TV alongside Mike Lowe, Gruninger created and has operated a safe and free streaming service for kids for the past decade.

Now, Gruninger has targeted a new vertical, this time in the pro sports world. This upcoming season, Calgary-based APMC has partnered with the Dallas Stars and Anaheim Ducks to stream their games on a new streaming service known as VICTORY+. The service will officially be available for download on smartphones, smart TVs and tablets on Sept. 11. It is a free direct-to-consumer, ad-based revenue streaming platform, the first of its kind for the NHL.

“(President and CEO) Brad Alberts from the Dallas Stars was in need of help,” Gruninger said via Zoom call. “He turned to me because we have a relationship (via) Jimmy Lites, who is on our board and was the former president and CEO of the Dallas Stars. He connected us and said, ‘Hey, there could be something here if you need distribution through the Internet.’

You can watch your content and your live games vis-à-vis a streaming solution. I said, ‘Brad, we’re just bringing you to the present day.’ It is the future and the revolutionary path around going free. Direct-to-consumer is very new to the sports world and that’s something that they’ve really leaned on. They’re leading that path through the lens of their fans. They’re like, ‘We just want our fans to get our content and our games.’ That’s the motivating factor right now for them, which is great. And then by doing so, we’ve attracted all these other teams and there’s a few others on the shortlist.

“The Anaheim Ducks were right behind the Stars and (club president) Aaron Teats and the group there were really excited about what we’re doing and recognized that there’s been a bit of a barrier to get their content to their fans. Now, they’re our second team and we have a lot more coming.

“They have a bit of a different path forward. They have an OTA (over-the-air) play (on KCOP Channel 13) alongside the streaming side for VICTORY+. So they do have an over-the-air play that will go out to their locations and locally alongside our streaming service in VICTORY+.

“We are proud to be the home of the Anaheim Ducks by offering a free over-the-air option for their fans. Broadcasting the Ducks on FOX 11 Plus is a natural additional to our station’s lineup of robust sports coverage, and we look forward to using this partnership as an opportunity to expand their visibility in our region.”

-Steve Carlston, Senior Vice President and General Manager of KTTV FOX 11 and KCOP Channel 13

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“The Dallas Stars have a huge TAM (television audience measurement) based on the 47 million people within their region and they just want to give access and celebrate the VICTORY+ brand and know that their fans can watch that content for free.”

The official partnership with the Ducks is still relatively fresh. It was announced on Aug. 27, but Gruninger said that discussions began just after the start of 2024. Gruninger was introduced to the Ducks through a mutual relationship. Jason Walsh, who is part of APMC’s team and previously served as the executive producer of Bally Sports Southwest for over a decade, connected Gruninger and Teats. Walsh also worked for the Stars’ organization in several broadcast production roles for almost 20 years.

“That connection and that trust factor was there with having Jason on our side and knowing that Aaron has worked with him for ages,” Gruninger said. “Aaron and I immediately got along and were seeing the same thing. There are certain leaders in these organizations and these clubs that recognize what we’re doing and they want to work with us. Each one of these clubs brings a unique thing. The Stars are bringing something new and the Ducks are bringing something new. They have great production ideas because that’s been their world for so long.

“Aaron gets it,” Gruninger said. “He’s like, ‘This is the future, this is where we want to go. How do we make it work?’ They have a different position with OTA. With the Stars, we’ve had more time to get things in order (and) market differently. And now with over-the-air (for the Ducks), we’re going to have distribution across every device traditionally and digitally. That’s something that we’ve worked into the economics for ourselves as a partnership and we have years and years to go.”

The partnership between APMC and the Ducks looks like a perfect fit. The Ducks were coming off the last year of their contract with Bally Sports and looking for a new broadcast partner amid Diamond Sports Group's bankruptcy filing last year and the uncertainty past the 2024-25 season for a new deal. With the Stars leading the charge as the first team to join up with VICTORY+ and the Ducks now right behind him, the future of streaming in the NHL is changing.

“We had to go through the full diligence with the NHL (and) get approval with our technologies,” Gruninger said. “So that was leading up to, ‘Hey, these guys are real. They do what they say they can do.’ We worked closely with (EVP of Media and International Strategy) David Proper at the NHL and he’s given us the stamps of approval. That was really key. Once that happened, there was a subset of teams that were in a position to find a new home.”

“We’re going to be looked at under a microscope this year. We’re doing something very new and unique and we know that all leagues—not just hockey—and all sports teams are going to be looking at this and saying, ‘Wow, if this works, this is the direction we want to go in.’

“So we have some leaders in the Ducks and the Stars and we’re just so fortunate to have them at this and put their fans first. That’s the main thing. We have almost 200 people working with us (at APMC) and they’re all very passionate about keeping kids safe. That’s transferring over to the sports world. Sports content is family-friendly. It’s all about getting that first experience with your parents or your loved ones and then all of a sudden becoming a fan of the future.

“Most sports in certain areas especially have alienated the ability to watch content and get access to the games and alienated generations of fans,” Gruninger said. “We’re re-igniting that to a degree. They recognize it, a lot of other teams recognize it.

“This year, we’re going to showcase some of the best streaming out there and prove that we know what we’re doing because we haven’t done it just once or twice, this will be our third time. Specifically to where we’re going to take this, it’s going to be a monster.

“It is a significant organizational priority to connect Ducks fans with our entire market and for every fan in our region to have the opportunity to watch Ducks games without cost across multiple, accessible platforms."

-Aaron Teats, Ducks President

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“I think we’re going to have a lot of teams looking at this differently as they get to download it, touch it, actually watch it and get the games immediately.”

Gruninger says VICTORY's broadcast productions will be similar—if not better—to the quality provided in the past by Bally Sports, the previous broadcast partner for the Stars and Ducks. The delay between real-time action and VICTORY+ streams is expected to be minimal as well.

“We’re not re-inventing the wheel with production. Especially in the Texas region, a majority of the production team is from Bally. We’re not changing out the crew and the camera crew and the personalities. It’s all the same team, just a different way and we’re just a different distribution hub to a degree.

"Production—in my opinion—is just going to get better because digitally, we’re going to be able to enhance what that means. You’re going to get very great content, as high-quality as ever, even more, because we’re not reducing cameras. We’re sticking to what fans deserve and then we’re going to enhance that because digitally we can change things and uniquely add layers of experiences along with it.

“(Minimizing lag is) really important to us. My biggest pet peeve is when I see a data point pop up on my Yahoo Sports app and then I’m watching the game and I've found out who scored before it even happened (on my screen). With the app, we’re going to ensure that metrics are triggered within the actual position that they’re in vis-à-vis the app, so that’s important for those notifications.

“And then we have some very interesting technology to ensure that our broadcast is as close as possible as it would be to watching the game (in-person). That’s really important. Our lag time is better than most and it ensures that you have a closer experience to the actual real-time of the game itself.”

While VICTORY+ is still in the early stages in terms of what it will have to offer out of the gate, Gruninger is already thinking about the possibilities it can provide to better enhance the experience for viewers. Alternate camera angles and guest commentary teams like Dude Perfect—who are partners with APMC—options that Gruninger hopes can be part of the broadcast down the line. A subscription-based package for super fans where more features would be available is another possibility, but Gruninger wants to make sure that the base product remains free as well.

“We’re direct-to-consumer. These teams want to give back to the fans. The economics work with the ads associated with it. We have to be transparent. Fans have to watch us, they need to come to VICTORY+, not pirate it. We just want to be open and transparent on what this means from an economic standpoint and ads will support the local market based on that and that’s what we need to focus on. In the future, there could be all these great enhancements that some users might want to upgrade to and if others don’t, then they still have access.”

Viewership metrics will be available for both the Stars and the Ducks, part of an analytics portal that APMC’s current content creators already have available to them that helps them figure out what features of their content their viewers do or don’t like.

Teams will be able to find out what forms of content (both on and off the ice) their fans are enjoying and lean into those avenues—while cutting out or halting content that fans did not enjoy as much.

“Metrics are so important to the teams and they’ve never had that in the past,” Gruninger said. “This is a way for them to really understand how to create better content from unique creation and shoulder content that is performing well and not performing well. They could get that on social media, but they couldn’t see it anywhere else. Metrics and view time and watch time, we’ll know every minute of what it is for these teams as opposed to having to receive Nielsen ratings a month later.

“That real-time metric is so important for a team and they’ve never been able to have access to it before, which is mindboggling. How can you build a business around that? It doesn’t make sense. Digitally, this is the main thing for them. Now, they know who their fans are, who’s watching a game and why they’re not watching a game. A part of all of this is uniquely positioned to incentivize fans.”

Gruninger says that VICTORY+ wants to enhance the experience for both viewers at home and those at the game. Having interactive elements on the app for both fans at home and the arena to participate in is part of APMC’s initiative to create a more enhanced experience. Thanks to real-time metrics, they’ll be able to know what does and doesn’t work right away too.

“That’s the other thing, now we can actually work with our fans. They can give us ideas, they can come to the table, we know who they are. Prior to this, the Stars and the Ducks didn’t have metrics on who their fans were watching their games. They couldn’t actually pay attention to understand, ‘Hey, I’m trying to build a great product for you.’ Now we can do that. That’s very important to us as well.”

The Stars agreed to a seven-year deal when they partnered up with VICTORY+. Gruninger preferred not to reveal the specific length of their deal with the Ducks, but mentioned that it was a long-term deal and ‘somewhere in and around there.’

With the Ducks entering a new era thanks to their recent rebrand, their crop of young stars on the rise and the continued development of OCVIBE, the partnership with VICTORY+ to create more accessible ways to access Ducks-related content is another step in the right direction.

“It’s perfect timing,” Gruninger said. “They have a young team, they’re going to grow. I’m excited how well they perform over the coming seasons and to be a part of that, it’s a blessing.”