By Luke Fletcher | Ft. Collins, CO

As the college sports media landscape continues to evolve, the Mountain West Conference is positioning itself to take greater control of its digital future.

Beginning with the 2026–27 season, the conference plans to launch a direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming platform, internally referred to as the Mountain West Conference (MW) app, powered by Kiswe. The agreement runs through the 2031–32 academic year and establishes a paid subscription service designed to create a new, conference-owned revenue stream for its member institutions.

Under the model, all revenue generated from subscriptions will be distributed back to Mountain West member schools, allowing institutions to directly benefit from fan engagement and control their own earning potential, a significant departure from traditional media-rights structures.

Participating schools are expected to include Air Force Falcons, Wyoming Cowboys, New Mexico Lobos, UTEP Miners, UNLV Rebels, Nevada Wolf Pack, San Jose State Spartans, Northern Illinois Huskies, Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, and North Dakota State Bison.

Each program brings a distinct audience, ranging from Hawaii’s late-night national viewing window to Air Force’s service-academy following and North Dakota State’s nationally recognized football brand.

The DTC will serve as the exclusive digital home for all 21 Mountain West conference-sponsored sports not broadcast on linear television, delivering more than 1,000 live events annually. That includes regular-season games, championship events, and Olympic sports that often struggle for visibility in traditional broadcast windows.

The scale of content is central to the value proposition. For fans, it creates a single destination for Mountain West athletics, the conference will have their own digital network. For the conference, it consolidates inventory that has historically been fragmented across regional networks and third-party platforms. Make no mistake, this is what ESPN + does for other conferences, however the Mountain West is betting on themselves.

The service will introduce two pricing tiers, offering both monthly and annual subscription options. Early projections center on a $4.99 monthly entry point, positioning the Mountain West Conference (MW) app, powered by Kiswe as an affordable alternative for alumni, regional fans, and cord-cutters.

At that price, each subscriber would generate $59.88 annually. Even modest adoption could yield meaningful returns. Let’s look at the simple math:

• 150,000 subscribers generate roughly $9 million per year or about $900,000 per school.
  
• 300,000 subscribers approach $18 million annually, translating to $1.8 million per school.
  
• 500,000 subscribers create revenue at $30 million, per-school payout $3 million.
  
• 750,000 subscribers exceed $44 million per year, or more than $4.5 million per institution.
  

Distributed across the league, those totals translate into six-figure to multi-million-dollar annual payouts per school, even after accounting for production and platform costs.

One of the most notable elements of this is its reinvestment model, which allows subscribers to select a favorite school when signing up. A portion of each subscription directly benefits that institution, tying revenue more closely to fan loyalty and engagement. In practice, that means schools with strong digital followings are rewarded, while all members retain upside through conference-wide growth. It’s a structure that mirrors trends in NIL-era college athletics, where direct fan support increasingly plays a role in program sustainability.

Accessibility is another pillar of the strategy. The Mountain West Conference (MW) app, powered by Kiswe, will be available on Roku, Apple TV,Amazon Fire TV, Android TV,  and Google Play  and other connected-TV platforms, while also launching as a subscription channel within Amazon Prime Video. The Amazon Prime Video integration significantly lowers the barrier to entry, placing Mountain West content directly inside one of the most widely used streaming ecosystems in the country.

The Mountain West isn’t trying to replace its traditional television partners. Instead, the conference is building a parallel revenue lane, one it owns, controls, and can scale over time. If successful, the Mountain West Conference (MW) app, powered by Kiswe could become a blueprint for Group of Six conferences navigating an uncertain media environment: fewer guarantees, but more autonomy; less dependence on linear windows, but deeper relationships with fans.

In an era where control may be just as valuable as cash, the Mountain West’s direct-to-consumer play could prove to be one of the most forward-looking moves in college athletics.