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All WHL Games Now Streamed Free

bigsportsfan

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Sep 28, 2012
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Victory+ streaming service has signed a multi-year deal with the Western Hockey League. The deal will see the WHL regular season and playoff games streamed for free on Victory+ starting with the 2025 WHL Playoffs.

I think this is the way to go if the league wants to expand its fan base. The CEBL basketball league streams all their games for free and attendance has increased steadily every year.

Do you think the OHL will ever move to free streaming of the games? Or does the fact that local cable companies broadcast most of the OHL games make free streaming of the games less likely.

chl.ca

Victory+ and WHL come together on most comprehensive streaming deal in junior hockey history - Moose Jaw Warriors

This will be the first time in the WHL’s history that their games will be available to stream for free to fans around the world, marking a new chapter in the accessibility of live sports.
chl.ca chl.ca
 
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I don't think you'll ever see in-market games streamed for free...not sure what the ratings are in Canada but I have to imagine that the local cable systems would balk at that. You might be able to stream out-of-market games but there would have to be a financial model to support it.

The OHL has been streaming the game-of-the-week on YouTube so that tells me that they're starting to think about alternate streaming options but it still may be a ways off.

I wish they'd stream all the games on YouTube because then you'd be able to pause and rewind the live broadcast which is a big limitation of the CHL streaming app.
 
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Why not stream all OHL games? Better exposure to scouts etc
 
I watched the Edmonton at Prince Albert game on the new free WHL streaming platform Victory+ and I have to say the video quality is perfect. It’s definitely 1080 HD and is completely smooth. There is no way the OHL can charge fans for CHL TV when the WHL gives their fans such great quality steaming video for free.
 
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I don't have any issues with the CHL app, it works great through the Roku device and I don't have any buffering or lag. The issue is the inconsistent broadcast from team to team... Some places have a regular TV team and others act like they're using a 1993 camcorder on their shoulder and are zoomed in too much or don't even know where the puck is.

Getting some teams to upgrade to a standard broadcast team and quality is the first step, finding sponsors is the next and then negotiating with the networks is the final step to having a high quality broadcast available for free.
 
Well I think everyone can agree that Eries streaming service is the absolute worst in the league and needs to be addressed.
 
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bigsportsfan said:
Victory+ streaming service has signed a multi-year deal with the Western Hockey League. The deal will see the WHL regular season and playoff games streamed for free on Victory+ starting with the 2025 WHL Playoffs.

I think this is the way to go if the league wants to expand its fan base. The CEBL basketball league streams all their games for free and attendance has increased steadily every year.

Do you think the OHL will ever move to free streaming of the games? Or does the fact that local cable companies broadcast most of the OHL games make free streaming of the games less likely.

chl.ca

Victory+ and WHL come together on most comprehensive streaming deal in junior hockey history - Moose Jaw Warriors

This will be the first time in the WHL’s history that their games will be available to stream for free to fans around the world, marking a new chapter in the accessibility of live sports.
chl.ca chl.ca
Click to expand...
They should but they’re too money hungry! If they want to grow the game- show the damn game!
 
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OSAttackFan88 said:
Well I think everyone can agree that Eries streaming service is the absolute worst in the league and needs to be addressed.
Click to expand...
Yeah their feed is like 15 fps. Whenever I've tried to watch Schaefer and Spence I stick to away games.

There's some other really bad ones too, Wenatchee would show replays during the play which was kind of annoying.
 
Reading this thread and video quality comments it brings me back to the old OHL Livestream days from 2011 - 2013 before they started to get better quality. I remember the Soo games looked like it was streamed from a mid 2000s flip phone. Even when they used the Rogers TV feed for Guelph or Cogeco w/ Windsor it was blurry. Not much buffering but man I couldn't really see the puck or numbers on jerseys. And I would pay for that every year because here in the States it was the only way to watch the games.

So even though the Erie feed isn't great, it's still way better than it used to be and I remind myself of that whenever I put a random game on since I haven't followed CHL as close since about 2019. I agree though in 2025 Erie should have a crystal clear feed.
 
I watched the Erie feed after having a few beers last night and I thought I was going to throw up I was so dizzy. It's too bad because their announcer team is very good to listen to but its almost an unwatchable broadcast so it's really doing a disservice to them.

I too remember the old days of streaming...I can remember being on Spring Break in Florida and watching a Spirit playoff game on my laptop and you could barely make out the puck. That said, when 19 out of 20 teams have a relatively smooth broadcast (some have jerky camera operators) there's no excuse for the terrible framerate that you get in Erie. Honestly the league should step in and have some minimum standards to broadcast and if they already have that, they need to enforce it.
 
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