Rangers Sports Network Releases Robust Opening Day TV Ratings Increase

The Texas Rangers took their chances with a new team-owned sports network and the early returns are promising.

Apr 6, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; Texas Rangers pitcher Hoby Milner (41) throws a pitch during the sixth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Globe Life Field. | Tim Heitman-Imagn Images

The Texas Rangers opted to handle their own television broadcast with the Rangers Sports Network, and the early returns show the move may have paid off.

The Rangers released the viewing numbers from opening day against the Boston Red Sox and reported an increase in viewing across all platforms.

Overall, RSN’s opening day broadcast showed a 51% increase in average household rating and a 44% rise in households tuning in across the DFW market, as measured by Nielsen, compared to the 2024 Bally Sports Southwest season average.

This year’s opening day game was broadcast by RSN on several linear cable outlets, along with its Victory+ streaming service.

Across all platforms, Nielsen reported a 182% increase in linear viewing impressions in the DFW market. RSN’s partnership with Victory+ resulted in another 179,000 viewers across the Rangers’ five-state viewing territory.

One of the organization’s stated goals was to expand the number of households that had access to the broadcast. Under the old partnership with Diamond Sports Group, which owned the Bally networks, several major linear cable channels could not reach a deal due to rights fee increases.

In taking on RSN on its own, the franchise — under Rangers Entertainment and Media Company LLC — wanted to improve that access.

By opening day, RSN had distribution deals in place with Spectrum, DirecTV, DirecTV Stream and AT&T/U-Verse. In addition, select regional games will be broadcast on CW 33 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with a group of regional over-the-air stations set up to broadcast those games throughout the Rangers’ designated market area.

Games on Victory+, a streaming app, can be viewed on Th Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Android TV, Apple TV, Vizio TV, Google TV, Apple iOS devices and Amazon mobile devices.

On Tuesday, the Rangers also announced new distribution deals with television providers Vyve Broadband and GEUS.  Both providers are expected to add RSN to their channel lineups by mid-April.  Those are in addition to deals with Fubo and Astound, which were reached after the initial wave of distribution deals.

The Texas Rangers have added more information around RSN, which will broadcast games for linear and cable for the 2025 season, including which cable, satellite and over-the-air providers will carry games, at a special web site set up for the network.