Victory+ is making its first move into the WNBA.
The streaming platform announced on Wednesday a multi-year partnership with the Minnesota Lynx, becoming the team’s exclusive local streaming home starting with the 2026 season. Fans in the Minneapolis/St. Paul market will have free access to at least 18 regular-season games, along with preseason matchups and shoulder programming across mobile, web, and connected TV, with the first game coming on April 25 against the Washington Mystics.
Victory+ has built its model primarily around free, ad-supported local streaming as an alternative to the regional sports network structure that has been collapsing around it. The platform launched with the Dallas Stars in 2024, putting all games in front of fans in the local market at no cost, with the Anaheim Ducks following. When the FanDuel Sports Networks were on the verge of folding earlier this year, multiple teams were reportedly in emergency talks with Victory+ as a replacement, with the streamer claiming it could onboard a new partner in three days. The platform expanded into women’s sports last fall when the NWSL signed on for more than 55 matches, including 25 exclusive Sunday primetime broadcasts.
The Lynx deal is the first in the WNBA.
“This further expands the platform’s footprint in women’s sports and reinforces its fan-first, free streaming model,” the company said in Wednesday’s announcement.
The league itself is heading into its most expansive broadcast season in history, with national games now spread across ESPN, NBC, Prime Video, CBS, Ion, and USA Network under its new 11-year media rights structure, valued at a reported $200 million annually. But national coverage only goes so far for a market that wants to watch its own team, and the Lynx — a franchise with six championships and one of the more established fanbases in the league — now have a local product that anyone in the Twin Cities can pull up for free.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.