The NHL's newest franchise has a new direct-to-consumer streaming app.

Billionaire Qualtronics co-founder Ryan Smith and his Smith Entertainment Group (SEG) own the expansion Utah Hockey Club, which will begin play in the upcoming 2024-25 season after relocating and transitioning from its previous iteration as the Phoenix Coyotes. The squad is teaming up with DTC tech shop Kiswe to build UtahHC+, which will run fans $69.99 a season and stream more than 75 of the team's pre- and regular-season games live. 

The platform is launching today with content including studio show Fresh Ice presented by Delta Air Lines.

Also read: ‘We’re Betting on Ourselves‘: Utah Jazz Claim More Than 20,000 Subscribers for New DTC Streaming Channel Jazz+

SEG already teamed with Kiswe last season to launch its NBA franchise, the Utah Jazz, on DTC app Jazz+. Utah sports fans can also pay $174.99 to buy an app, SEG+, that rolls up both Jazz+ and UtahHC+. 

SEG is trying to get fans in the gate now. Subscribers who order UtahHC+ by Sept. 30, for example, will receive two single-goal-view tickets to a regular-season game. 

UtahHC+ is available to customers throughout the state of Utah, as well as Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, and parts of Nevada. Scripps-owned KUPX-TV will also broadcast games that aren't nationally televised for free. 

For its part, SEG+ will be available to customers in the region where Utah Hockey Club's broadcast territory overlaps with that of the Jazz, who broadcast their games on Sinclair-owned KJZZ-TV. 

Updated: A previous iteration of this story incorrectly described Utah Hockey Club as an expansion team. 

Nearly five months after completing a mad dash to build and launch their direct-to-consumer streaming platform, Jazz+, the NBA's Utah Jazz and team owner, Smith Entertainment Group (SEG), took time out for a little home run trot … or, perhaps more appropriately, a little impromptu three-point celebration while trotting back downcourt in transition. 

Caroline Klein, chief communications officer or the Jazz and SEG, said team management is quite proud of the digital platform that was, with the help of technology partner Kiswe, built in just 47 days and completed just before the Jazz started the 2023-24 season back on October 25. 

Also Read: NBA’s Utah Jazz Return to Local Broadcast TV Via Deal With — Get This — Sinclair

Jazz+ signed up 10,000 subscribers in its first month, she said, and has registered more than 20,000 subscriptions to date, with customers choosing to pay either $15.50 for by-the-month plans or $125.50 for a full-season package. 

Engagement is high — as of February, 50% of Jazz+ subscribers had streamed something within the past day, and 75% had watched something within the past 10 days.

Another 1,700 users have signed up or $5-a-pop single-game subscriptions, Klein added.

The new DTC reach comes as the Jazz transition from defunct regional sports network AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain to Sinclair-owned KJZZ -- Klein said the team's total TV audience has been up an average of 53% this season.

“We take a lot of pride in it,” said Klein, speaking to Next TV last week over Zoom, describing a DTC platform that not only include live game streams and replays, but also exclusive original programming. The most popular of these shows: Shoot the Shot with Will Hardy, which features the team's head coach playing horse with select members of his roster, interviewing them with quirky personal questions as they go. 

Building Mode

Warner Bros. Discovery, which reluctantly inherited SportsNet Rocky Mountain, made it clear a year ago of its intentions to exit the regional sports networks business, but Klein said the team read the tea leaves months earlier and had already started exploring alternative local TV arrangements.

“When we entered the open negotiation process, we knew we were not going to renew with SportsNet,” Klein said. “Our contract was going to end with [at the end of the 2022-23 season] … It took us 11 months to figure it out, but we couldn't get what we wanted with current RSN market,” Klein said. 

One of only six NBA teams to produce its own games, the Jazz approached its hybrid broadcast/DTC local TV model with clear eyes, understanding, Klein added, that initial revenue would not match that from RSN distribution, at least not immediately.

“We definitely took a hit with revenue,“ she said, “But we’re betting on ourselves. We own all of our ad inventory, after all … We knew this was not a quick fix. It's not apples to apples.” 

The Jazz's 11-month search for its local TV path forward led to an eleventh-hour decision to go with Kiswe, which has already handled similar DTC projects for very similar moves recently made by the NBA's Phoenix Suns and NHL's Arizona Coyotes. 

"We will not forget those 47 days," quipped Kiswe co-founder and CMO Wim Sweldens, speaking to us via Zoom alongside Klein, and describing the frenzied process between contract signing and the Jazz+ launch. 

The Jazz, Sweldens said, pushed Kiswe pretty hard to get things right at launch. But the product went out of the gate with few, if any, significant bugs. 

"Live streaming is not so easy," he added. "It takes quite a bit of expertise make sure that it goes off without a hitch." 

As they get set to tip off their 2023-24 NBA season Wednesday at home against the Sacramento Kings, the rebuilding Utah Jazz are stocked with young talent, but they remain a competitive afterthought in the league's loaded Western Conference, currently placed 23rd overall in ESPN's pre-season rankings. 

For media business observers, however, the Jazz, along with their Western Conference rivals the Phoenix Suns, and several NHL teams (the Vegas Golden Knights and the Arizona Coyotes) are the most compelling teams in pro sports right now. 

Also read: NBA Goes DTC in Phoenix With ‘Suns Live’

These franchises have bolted the fast-crumbling regional sports networks ecosystem and are embarking on retrograde local TV arrangements with broadcast partners. 

For their part, the Jazz announced Tuesday that they increased their total local TV audience reach by nearly fivefold by bolting shuttering regional sports channel AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain and returning to their ancestral broadcast TV home, KJZZ-TV, now owned (somewhat ironically, if you follow the crumbling regional sports networks business) by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Forsaken earlier this year by Warner Bros. Discovery, which wanted out of the decreasingly profitable RSN business, A&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain reached roughly 39% of Utah TV homes, with carriage delivered primarily via Comcast and DirecTV. (This comes from another deep dive on the Jazz's TV transition published by Sports Business Journal on Monday.)

The Jazz said Tuesday that KJZZ-TV will reach 3.3 million "fans" in Utah alone. And through an "enhanced agreement" between Sinclair and virtual pay TV operator Fubo, subscribers of Fubo service in southeastern Idaho and western Wyoming can also watch Jazz games on KJZZ-TV. Additionally, Fubo subscribers in these neighboring state regions will have access to subscribe to the team's new direct-to-consumer streaming service, Jazz Plus. 

Meanwhile, it turns out that the Jazz aren't entirely done with RSNs, after all -- the team signed a deal with Northwest-situated Root Sports, majority owned and operated by Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners with a minority assist from Warner Bros. Discovery, to show Jazz games in Montana, as well as in most parts of Idaho, eastern Washington and eastern Oregon.

The Sports Business Journal story chronicles the deep, longstanding ties between the team and KJZZ-TV, a relationship that gestated many of the production staffers who are still with the franchise today. 

In fact, the Jazz are one of a handful of NBA teams that produce their own local TV broadcast -- a factor that made the team much more nimble and mobile in regard to selecting its new local TV path. 

But the happy narrative remains clouded by monetary uncertainty. 

According to the aforementioned Sports Business Journal report, the Jazz were generating between $24 million - $28 million a year via their SportsNet Rocky Mountain deal. 

Even with significantly expanded broadcast reach and a subscription-based DTC component, can the team match or exceed that local TV revenue?

The prospects seem hopeful. 

With the Jazz generating an estimated $14 million - $18 million annually in local TV rights fees from Sinclair, the SBJ did some back-of-the-napkin math suggesting the team could generate another $6.5 million in local TV advertising a year based on current rates. 

The broader reach -- and greater potential ad impressions -- could drive up those rates significantly, and the Jazz's financial upside from the transition along with it. And that's not even accounting for the still-uncertain DTC streaming revenue from Jazz Plus. 

Again, media watchers will be tracking the team's bottom line closely this season, along with those of the Suns, Golden Knights and Coyotes, to see what the post-RSN future holds. 

Smith Entertainment Group, which owns the NBA's Utah Jazz, has released the pricing model for the team's new and upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service, Jazz+. 

The platform features a broad range of consumer flexibility, letting Jazz fans merely pay $5 to stream an individual game (with Spanish-language simulcast), pay $15.50 for an entire month of games, or cough up $125.50 for a full season. 

The Full Monty option not only comes with on-demand access to already played Jazz games and exclusive content, but also tchotchkes like two tickets to a Jazz home game, and a Jazz T-shirt and hat.

Also read: NBA's Utah Jazz Return to Local Broadcast TV Via Deal With — Get This — Sinclair

With parent company Warner Bros. Discovery abandoning the AT&T SportsNet RSNs, including the Jazz's previous local TV home, SportsNet Rocky Mountain, the team in June signed a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group to broadcast its regular-season games locally out of Salt Lake City's KJZZ-TV. 

At the same time, Smith Media Group contracted digital video technology company Kiswe to create a DTC streaming platform, offering the more avid Jazz fanbase an enhanced, app-based viewing experience on myriad devices outside the living room. 

Also read: Kiswe Mobile's Mike Schabel: Why the NBA's Phoenix Suns Are Still Going to Get Their 'Buckets' on Free Over-the-Air Broadcast TV

Wednesday's published pricing information isn't just interesting to Jazz fans, however, with numerous other pro sports teams previously tied down to linear regional sports network commitments expanding into their own DTC streaming initiatives. 

Kiswe, for example, is also developing a similar DTC platform for the Jazz's Southwest NBA neighbors, the Phoenix Suns, a team also exiting the RSN ecosystem and broadcasting its games locally via E.W. Scripps. 

Meanwhile, the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup Champion Vegas Golden Knights are also launching a hybrid broadcast-DTC model for their local TV market and have contracted Ted Leonis-backed ViewLift to help launch their streaming service, KnightTime+.

Earlier this week, the Golden Knights announced their own pricing deets for KnightTime+. The new service will offer subscribers streaming access to 69 live games this upcoming NHL season for $69.99, or single-game access for $6.99. 

With Warner Bros. Discovery looking to abandon its limited presence in the declining regional sports networks business, the NBA’s Utah Jazz, which had called WBD's AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain home, have been looking to develop what the team calls a “hybrid model” for its next distribution agreement. 

They seem to have found it in a somewhat ironic place. Next season, the Jazz will locally broadcast all of their games not picked up by national networks ESPN, ABC and TNT free and over the air on channel 14, aka KJZZ Salt Lake City. That station is owned by a company on the leading edge of dismantling the regional sports networks business, Sinclair Broadcast Group. 

The Jazz will also show their games on a new direct-to-consumer streaming service, founded by the team's new media venture, Smith Entertainment Group (SEG), which is named after team owner Jason Smith. 

Also read: Phoenix Suns Could Have Big ATSC 3.0 Distribution Plans, and Other Teams, Including the Utah Jazz, Might Soon Follow

“It’s not a super long-term deal, but with the flexibility, it’s probably much more of a partnership than a deal," Smith told local paper the Salt Lake City Tribune. 

The length of the contract wasn't defined.

"With KJZZ, if we’re good partners, we’ll keep going, and if we’re not good partners with each other, we won’t," Smith added. 

WBD told its AT&T SportsNet team partners in February that it was looking to divest itself from the channels. 

RSN margins have whittled away quickly amid cord-cutting — non-sports fans have exited the pay TV ecosystem in droves, driving down the market value of local sports network dramatically. 

Sinclair, for example, paid $10.6 billion to acquire 19 Fox Sports Net channels in 2019.  At the time, those channels were spinning off margins in excess of 50%. By March of this year, those average margins had whittled below 15%, and the division Sinclair had set up to manage its sports networks, Diamond Sports Group, entered bankruptcy. 

Certainly, it didn't help that Sinclair management elected to pursue expensive stock buyback initiatives rather than pay down debt on the regional sports networks it branded as Bally Sports. Investors — and perhaps more so, creditors — will just have to forgive management, financially well off personally as they may be now, for that fateful decision. 

As for the “partnership” between the Jazz and Sinclair, don’t be surprised if the broadcast station group finds a way to use its acumen with ATSC 3.0 to develop a new broadcast sports business model with the pro hoops team down the road. Smith did talk about "flexibility," after all.  

Just our prediction. 

In December, media technologist Todd Achilles shuttered his innovative ATSC 3.0 startup, Evoca TV, unable to secure tens of millions of dollars in capital needed to keep his venture going. 

But this sad culmination belied how close Achilles and Evoca actually came last year to transforming the currently challenged regional sports network model. 

According to an executive close to Evoca's dealings at the time, the startup -- which counted Gray Television among its backers -- had the NBA's Utah Jazz and New Orleans Pelicans, and even league Commissioner Adam Silver, seriously considering what it pitched as the "Denver Example." 

It was in Denver where Boise, Idaho-based Evoca was bundling AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, home of Major League Baseball's Colorado Rockies, along with Altitude Sports, home of the NBA's Denver Nuggets and NHL's Colorado Avalanche, delivering the package to consumers, primarily via ATSC 3.0, for $25 a month. 

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As a further enticement, local-area sports fans could receive all of their local broadcast channels via the proprietary Scout receiver Evoca provided to customers. Evoca didn't have to pay retrans on those channels because they were being delivered free and over the air ... via ATSC 3.0. 

Sports fans could follow their favorite team, and carve out a respectable skinny bundle with a low-cost complimentary vMVPD like Sling TV, without paying for the Full Pay-TV Monty. And regional sports networks costs weren't being crammed down the throats of TV lovers who don't watch sports. 

And with DTC streaming unable as yet to generate RSN-level revenue, teams and leagues were able to keep the golden goose intact. 

"The beauty of this model is that it kept the current system going ... It relieved all the pressure points," the insider told Next TV. 

Ultimately, Evoca wasn't able to sway what were described by the insider as often obtuse gatekeepers at Northeastern investment banks into providing around $40 million in funding -- a level that, perhaps, was admittedly "too high." 

Evoca also couldn't convince Sinclair's Diamond Sports Group, operator of Bally Sports Arizona, the exclusive RSN home of the NBA's Phoenix Suns and WBNA's Phoenix Mercury, to sign onto the Denver Example.

And it couldn't get its station group backers -- which included the E.W. Scripps Company, in addition to Gray TV -- to cough up more coin, either. 

In retrospect, the station groups "probably figured they could do [Evoca's plan] on their own," the insider said. 

Jump Forward to This Morning

On Friday morning, Gray TV, the Suns and the Mercury generated bombshell headlines, announcing the teams' exit from Sinclair/Diamond's bankrupt Bally Sports regional sports networks umbrella, entering a local broadcast TV deal with Gray TV stations.

If the Suns and Mercury are successful in extricating themselves from their contractual ties with Bally parent Diamond Sports Group -- and that's a big if, depending on what a Texas bankruptcy judge decides in the next few weeks -- the teams will broadcast the majority of their games to 2.8 million viewers across three local stations covering the Phoenix, Tucson and Yuma markets.

Games will also be streamed direct-to-consumer via a platform developed by Kiswe.

Also read -- Diamond Does It: Files for Bankruptcy Looking to Shed $8 Billion in Bally Sports Debt

Updated: Next TV added details needed to clarify the Phoenix Suns TV rights revenue. 

The Suns currently make around $24 million a season on an expiring local TV rights deal with Bally Sports Arizona. The team, which has more than $290 million committed to guard Devin Booker alone in a multiyear deal, is reportedly looking to step up to as much as $50 million a season in its next rights deal. 

A source familiar with the Suns' TV deal told Next TV, well, what's probably obvious to anyone familiar with sports media -- that licensing local broadcast rights and making almost every game ubiquitously available free-to-consumer wouldn't generate an ad revenue split anything close to $50 million. 

"They're not going to just put this out over broadcast TV and lose $50 million a year," the source said.

So we can definitely look for Gray TV, the Suns and the Mercury to further evolve their TV distribution model.

"The potential model has components to it including tiered non-exclusive pay TV distribution, as well as broadcast enabled pay walls via ATSC 3.0. Will those appear all at once?  That I don’t know. But I do know it can keep rights fees within current parameters," tweeted sports media consultant Patrick Crakes Friday morning. 

The ATSC 3.0 possibility, which would allow the teams to control access and monetization, is interesting here. 

Notably, in addition to Gray TV, a number of folks associated with the Evoca play also have their fingerprints on the Suns/Mercury deal, including another sports media consultant, Lee H. Berke, who is even quoted in this morning's Gray TV press release. 

Meanwhile, William Morris Endeavor super-agent Karen Brodkin, who represents the Jazz, Pelicans ... and Suns, among other pro sports teams, was also said to have had a foundational role in Evoca's team dealings. 

Also notable: The Gray TV press release says the deal will "make games available" to 2.8 million Arizona households. Might this imply that not all of that viewing will be free? Might ATSC 3.0 be used to tier levels of access, as well as viewing features, like 4K?

Jazzed About Self-Distribution

The ongoing Bally Sports bankruptcy restructuring has further destabilized a sports media ecosystem already reeling from a rapid acceleration in pay TV cord-cutting. 

On Thursday, for instance, Comcast, the biggest pay TV operator in America, reported its biggest ever quarterly Xfinity TV losses, bleeding out 614,000 more video souls in Q1. 

But there are other inflection points, notably Warner Bros. Discovery's announced intention to exit the RSN business. 

The NBA's Jazz are currently planning to broadcast their games next season without WBD's AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain. 

According to a mid-March report in The Athletic, the Jazz -- which control all of their own TV production -- are looking for a "hybrid approach" to TV distribution, one that marries "broadcast on TV and a direct-to-consumer option."

Under a scenario described to The Athletic by Jazz communications chief Caroline Klein, a certain number of games would be available free over the airwaves, as to not alienate the fanbase, as the exclusive gates of regional channels have over the years. But enough games would be paywalled as to keep revenue flat -- or at least around flat -- with the incumbent but failing RSN model. 

Notably, before the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers agreed with Diamond last year to re-up with Bally Sports, the team carved out a deal with Nexstar Media Group to broadcast 15 games for free on KTLA. 

As for the Suns and the Jazz, emerging TV distribution goals might not just be about keeping fans happy. These teams might want to avoid a future in which their huge team payrolls can be undermined by companies like Sinclair Broadcast Group, which embarked on several expensive stock buyback gambits after it paid $9.6 billion to acquire the Fox Sports RSNs four years ago. 

These buybacks undermined the ability of Sinclair and Diamond to manage the billions of dollars in Bally Sports debt, once erosion to the pay TV ecosystem whittled margins on the Bally Sports channels from around 50% in 2019 to less than 20% today.

“The goal is to not have to rely on these big companies,” said an unnamed team president to The Athletic. “You get a big rights fee and that’s great but we’ve watched those companies nose dive over the last few years." 

fuboTV, the sports-oriented streaming virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD), reached a carriage deal with AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain.

The agreement comes just before the start of the NBA and NHL season. When fuboTV launches AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, it will have Utah Jazz, Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Rockies games. 

Financial terms were not disclosed.

fubo TV also recently made a deal to carry AT&T’s Root Sports. Other distributors are more reluctant to carry regional sports networks, which carry relatively high fees. Dish Network dropped AT&T SportsNet and Root Sports late last month.

fuboTV plans to launch the regional sports network first in the Nevada and Utah area. 

“fuboTV continues on our mission to bring consumers their favorite hometown teams, alongside national and international sports coverage, at an affordable price,” said Ben Grad, senior VP of content strategy and acquisition for fuboTV. “Today’s partnership agreement with AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain will bring sports fans streaming coverage of some of their favorite local teams - just in time for the NBA and NHL seasons. We’re thrilled to welcome another AT&T SportsNet RSN to fuboTV.”

FuboTV also carries the local network affiliate TV stations in Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. 

“We know that fans in this region have been asking for more ways to get access to the Utah Jazz, Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Rockies and are particularly interested in streaming options,” said Nina Kinch, VP of affiliate relations for AT&T Sports Networks. “This deal now means that fans in all four of our regions now have access to stream their favorite teams with fuboTV.

In a shocking and unprecedented move, the National Basketball Association has suspended play indefinitely after a Utah Jazz player tested positive for the coronavirus, the league announced Wednesday night.

The league made the announcement after postponing the Utah Jazz-Oklahoma City Thunder game once it was learned that Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, according to ESPN.

The league also postponed its 10:30 p.m. (ET) New Orleans Pelicans-Sacramento Kings game, which was supposed to air on ESPN. The suspension of live NBA games will create a major scheduling hole for league TV rights holders ESPN and TNT.

[embed]https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/1237917361979699200[/embed]

The stunning announcement comes hours after the NCAA announced that its "March Madness" college basketball tournament will be played without fans in the stands. Several college conferences had already canceled conference tournaments or opted to play the games without spectators.

RELATED: NCAA 'March Madness' Tournament to Take Place Without Live Audience 

ABC’s NBA Finals Game 7 telecast last night drew more than 30 million viewers, making it the most watched NBA Finals came in 18 years, according to ABC.

The game, in which LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the defending champion Golden State Warriors to win its first NBA title and the city’s first championship since 1964, drew 30.7 million viewers, besting Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz, according to ESPN.

 ABC’s Game 7 viewership peaked with 44.5 million viewers and a 22.5 U.S. rating from 10:30-10:40 p.m. (ET), according to Nielsen.

Overall, the series averaged 20,1 million viewers and an 11.3 U.S. rating for its seven games. The back-to-back Cavaliers-Warriors NBA Finals in 2015 and 2016 are the two-most-watched and highest-ratedNBA Finals ever on ABC, according to ESPN.

The game also drew a whopping 7.4 million Tweets from 1.7 million unique Twitter users, according to Nielsen’s Twitter TV Ratings. The game also generated 96.2 million total minutes streamed and an average minute audience of 598,000 viewers, which is the most for a non-World Cup event ever on WatchESPN, according to the network.