The Mountain West Conference has more than 1,000 games that remain uncommitted to linear broadcast partners CBS, CW, and Fox.

While most conferences place their “excess” inventory on ESPN+, the MWC has been exploring a different route: licensing rights to current student-athletes looking to stream games to their social media followings. It worked with Creator Sports Network to provide select players with the broadcast feeds to five women’s and one men’s basketball games this past winter.

“You raise the profile of the student-athlete, then you raise the profile of the institution,” Javan Hedlund (Senior Associate Commissioner, Mountain West Conference) said. “That ultimately raises the profile of the Mountain West.”

Early data points from the six-game trial were encouraging. Colorado State saw a 15% bump —from 2,600 to 3,000 viewers— between its first player streamed game and its second.

The goal for the Mountain West is to package a number of the currently uncommitted games into a creator-focused rights offering next school year.

The playbook isn’t new. It reflects the growing recognition that athletes, like creators, can reach audiences residing outside traditional broadcast windows.

“We think the future is every single college athlete [will be] broadcasting the games they are playing in,” Barrick Prince (founder, Creator Sports Network) said. Creators with a following “are distribution channels, just like a traditional TV channel or local ABC affiliate.”

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Though the viewership numbers were small, the Mountain West’s unconventional approach showed promise.

For context, the Colorado State players who streamed the games —Hannah Ronsiek, Kloe Froebe, and Brooke Carlson— are anything but social media unicorns. The three players have ~9,300 followers combined on Instagram. 

However, that’s more than the CSU women’s basketball team has following its account (8,600). And that reality is what has believers excited about the promise of creator distribution—each individual serves as a curator for their own dedicated following. 

The Mountain West sees player streaming as a way to generate incremental conference-level revenue and NIL income for its players (CSN licenses the rights from the conference and pays the athletes). Longer-term, the hope is these influential individuals will introduce new, younger viewers to the conference’s product and that, over time, it will be able to convert a percentage into paid subscribers of a planned streaming app.

The alternative —ESPN+— offers great exposure, but those broadcasts tend to be unprofitable after accounting for the cost of announcers and production.

Prince insists the potential upside in creator streaming is huge based on the other 240 events his company has done with larger influencers. CSN’s average event have driven between 30 million and 120 million verified impressions.

Its latest deal, signed earlier this month, will bring Bundesliga matches to Canadian soccer fans. Three influencers, with a total of 1.35 million followers across YouTube and Twitch, will stream the games live. 

The league’s existing media partners, DAZN and OneSoccer, will broadcast those matches too. Creator streams running alongside rights-holder telecasts have been typical of the licensing arrangements done to date.

CSN has said it sees no signs of one cannibalizing the other. Other alternative streaming providers have echoed a similar sentiment. 

Social media’s growing dominance over viewing habits is likely to make athlete/creator distribution more prominent over time. 

YouTube has been the fastest growing distributor among all platforms in recent years (think: streaming, broadcast and cable.). Over the past three years, its share of consumption has more than doubled (to 12.5% in January) and YT is now the largest broadcaster of video content.

Morgan Stanley data indicates YouTube sees 2 billion daily active users tuning in for an average of 80 minutes each. 

Younger viewers “won’t watch [linear] TV [or vMPVDs],” Campbell McLaren (CEO, Combate Global) said. “The new way of reaching digital viewers is where they live—YouTube.”

Like CSN, McLaren sees lots of potential with creator licensing. He is in talks with creators in the U.S. and elsewhere to distribute Combate Global through their social channels.

The objective is to expand the promotion’s non-Latino audience and unlock a new revenue stream. Combate lost a well-performing English language distribution partner when Paramount+ acquired the UFC’s rights earlier this year. 

“YouTube is disrupting everybody. I am just figuring out a way to use [it] to my advantage,” McLaren said.

While creator-licensing is just getting started in the U.S., there is precedent for it displacing traditional TV abroad.

In Brazil, creator Casimiro Miguel gained popularity during the pandemic streaming his reactions to soccer games and other events. By 2022, he had become so popular he was streaming pro league matches, with his own commentary, to audiences that exceeded what established broadcaster Globo drew for those same games.

Now, CazéTV, the YouTube channel Casimiro formed with sports marketer LiveMode, has the live rights to stream the 2026 World Cup within the country.

Prince acknowledges the conventional way of broadcasting sport on TV isn’t disappearing anytime soon. But he’s betting the future looks more like the social platforms that appeal to younger fans today.

“Traditional television is going to continue on its trajectory… they are going to continue to be there,” he said. “But I would challenge anyone [to argue] that [our viewers] will come to [established] television…. Anyone who says that doesn’t understand this generation.” 

If Prince is correct, the definition of a ‘rights holder’ will need to expand in time.