July 20, 2025
The brand new streaming platform will function not solely intra-conference athletic occasions, but in addition authentic programming.
On July 16, Southwestern Athletic Convention (SWAC) Commissioner Dr. Charles McClelland introduced the official launch of SWAC TV — a brand new streaming platform that may function not solely intra-conference athletic occasions, but in addition authentic programming highlighting the individuals and moments which have formed the historical past of the Southwestern Athletic Convention.
In response to HBCU Gameday, Dr. McClelland introduced the streaming service throughout SWAC Soccer’s Media Day, and hailed the service as a possible gamechanger for the SWAC. The service will launch on August 1, and shall be carried by most main streaming app shops, together with Roku, Amazon Hearth, Apple TV, Google Play, and Android TV.
“For the primary time in historical past, our followers and supporters can have a high-quality, technologically superior streaming platform solely devoted to broadcasting reside occasions and delivering high-definition on-demand league content material. We stay up for using SWAC TV as a catalyst to inform the impactful tales and legacies—each previous and current—which have helped form the SWAC into what it’s as we speak,” Dr. McClelland mentioned.
In response to McClelland’s feedback throughout his media availability interval, the enterprise, which has its roots in current infrastructure and viewership patterns in place at ESPN+, HBCU GO, and the SWAC’s personal SWAC Digital Community, was virtually a no brainer for SWAC TV’s company sponsors, who noticed the worth in an elevated digital platform and didn’t want Dr. McClelland to promote them on it.
Dr. McClelland is seeking to the platform—which is able to carry with it its personal central studio present—to spice up the convention’s publicity, improve fan expertise, and lift the extent of officiating in any respect athletic occasions. The SWAC TV platform, the results of a collaborative effort between the aforementioned digital platforms, permits for followers to look at any sporting occasion on demand.
As McClelland instructed HBCU Gameday, “The fantastic thing about it’s now we don’t have to decide on which video games we predict are going to be important. All of them are going to be proven. We predict our followers deserve it…it’s lastly right here.”
Lengthy-term, what Dr. McClelland envisions is one thing much like ESPN or the NFL Community, the place video games are archived and broadcast as a part of a programming bundle, as he defined to HBCU Sports activities in an prolonged interview.
“We’re in search of our video games to be archived for a big period of time. Part of our strategic plan is to get it proper right here on all of those platforms, then transfer to some type of free TV like Pluto, the place we’ve got our personal channel and a few televised community on linear TV,” McClelland instructed the outlet. “We would like to have the ability to return and present the 1984 sport with Mississippi Valley State vs. Alcorn State.”
He continued, “The extent of publicity we predict it’s going to carry shall be extremely important, and it’s going to be extra than simply soccer and basketball. We’re going to broadcast all of our sports activities. Olympic sports activities, girls’s sports activities. It’s going to be an expanded alternative.”
In response to a press launch from the Alabama A&M Athletics Division, Dr. McClelland believes deeply within the platform’s potential to essentially rework how followers, alumni, and supporters of the SWAC interact with the convention.
“The debut of SWAC TV is undoubtedly a game-changer for the Southwestern Athletic Convention. For the primary time in historical past, our followers and supporters can have a high-quality, technologically superior streaming platform solely devoted to broadcasting reside occasions and delivering high-definition on-demand league content material,” Dr. McClelland mentioned within the press launch.
He continued, “With over a century of profound historical past and even brighter days forward, we stay up for successfully using SWAC TV as a catalyst to inform the impactful tales and legacies each previous and current which have helped form the SWAC into what it’s as we speak, which is without doubt one of the premiere athletic associations within the nation.”
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