July 20, 2025
Sports And Legacy Go Live: Southwestern Athletic Conference Streaming Platform Debuts Aug. 1
The new streaming platform will feature not only intra-conference athletic events, but original programming.
On July 16, Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Commissioner Dr. Charles McClelland announced SWAC TV—a new streaming platform that will feature not only intra-conference athletic events, but original programming highlighting the people and moments that have shaped the history of the SWAC.
McClelland announced the streaming service during SWAC Football’s Media Day, and hailed the service as a potential gamechanger for the conference.
The service will launch on August 1, and will be carried by most major streaming app stores, including Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Google Play, and Android TV.
“For the first time in history, our fans and supporters will have a high-quality, technologically advanced streaming platform solely dedicated to broadcasting live events and delivering high-definition on-demand league content. We look forward to utilizing SWAC TV as a catalyst to tell the impactful stories and legacies—both past and present—that have helped shape the SWAC into what it is today,” McClelland said.
McClelland is looking to the platform—which will bring with it its own central studio show—to boost the conference’s exposure, enhance fan experience, and raise the level of officiating at all athletic events. The SWAC TV platform, the result of a collaborative effort between various digital platforms, allows for fans to watch any sporting event on demand.
As McClelland told HBCU Gameday, “The beauty of it is now we don’t have to choose which games we think are going to be significant. All of them are going to be shown. We think our fans deserve it…it’s finally here.”
Long-term, McClelland envisions something similar to ESPN or the NFL Network, where games are archived and broadcast as part of a programming package.
“We’re looking for our games to be archived for a significant amount of time. A part of our strategic plan is to get it right here on all of these platforms, then move to some form of free TV like Pluto, where we have our own channel and some televised network on linear TV,” McClelland told HBCU Sports. “We want to be able to go back and show the 1984 game with Mississippi Valley State vs. Alcorn State.”
He continued, “The level of exposure we think it’s going to bring will be highly significant, and it’s going to be more than just football and basketball. We’re going to broadcast all of our sports. Olympic sports, women’s sports. It’s going to be an expanded opportunity.”
According to a press release from the Alabama A&M Athletics Department, McClelland believes deeply in the platform’s potential to fundamentally transform how fans, alumni, and supporters of the SWAC engage with the conference.
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