AllPhly’s daily morning shows hosted by Anthony Gargano and Jon Marks, as well as its weekday video podcasts for the Eagles, Phillies, 76ers and Flyers, are now being broadcast by the nation’s largest cable television provider.
The Philadelphia Business Journal reports AllCity Network, the parent company of AllPhly, expanded distribution for its podcasts this week to Comcast’s Xfinity TV and free streaming platforms Samsung TV Plus and The Roku Channel.
The launches, which also include AllPhly’s sister networks in Chicago, Denver and Phoenix, represent the first streaming local sports channels to be launched on any of the three platforms. In addition to AllPhly's website, its Philadelphia sports content is now available nationally on The Roku Channel, Xfinity X1 channel 4073, and locally on Samsung TV Plus channel 2348.
Brandon Spano, CEO of Denver-based AllCity Network, said he expects distribution to expand to additional platforms in the coming months. Spano said each of the four outlets in the AllCity Network will now air six to 10 hours of live daily content on television.
“At the end of the day, as long as people are watching or listening to our shows, we don't care what else they do,” Spano said in marking Tuesday’s launch. “We would like to have really good relationships with the sports talk stations and the RSNs in each market. But the writing's on the wall. I've raised $25 million for this company now in total. And that's not a coincidence, when you [see] what's going on around the country [with RSNs struggling].”
Most recently, AllCity raised $12 million in August from Tegna, the parent company of Gannett Co. That came less than a year after AllCity raised $9 million in a round led by individual investors including former 76ers star Andre Iguodala and former NBA All-Star Chauncey Billups, along with venture capital firms in San Francisco and London. The company also recently signed a deal with UK-based betting operator Bet365 to become its exclusive sports betting partner.
AllCity was formed in 2019, with Philadelphia becoming its fourth city to launch in September 2023.
Gargano was a major factor in launching AllPhly, despite still working at 97.5 The Fanatic at the time. He helped to recruit talent and provided a well-known name from sports talk radio to help introduce the upstart network’s brand, but The Fanatic’s parent company, Beasley Broadcasting Group, sued Gargano for breach of contract shortly after AllPhly announced its launch in September 2023.
The lawsuit was eventually settled, with the terms of that deal keeping him off the air for six months. His AllPhly show finally began in March, airing from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. weekdays.
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