The NBA logo before the game between the Detroit Pistons and Charlotte Hornets at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit on March 11, 2024.
Nic Antaya |
Fans of the Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans are looking forward to a new way to watch local games in the upcoming National Basketball Association season.
According to a bankruptcy filing Friday, both teams are leaving their regional sports networks owned by Diamond Sports.
The NBA season is scheduled to begin on October 22. While neither franchise has publicly announced where local games will be broadcast, both teams have had their games broadcast by local broadcasters in the past.
The Pelicans have reached an agreement in principle with Gray TV will no longer broadcast games this season, a person close to the team told CNBC, confirming earlier media reports. Representatives for Gray and the Pelicans declined to comment on the matter.
Last season, the Pelicans broadcast 10 of their games on Gray's local stations, and the Mavericks, who appeared in the NBA Finals last season, entered into a 13-game agreement with label's Dallas-Fort Worth stations.
Representatives for the Mavericks and Tegna did not immediately respond to CNBC's inquiries about who would broadcast their local games.
The Mavericks and Pelicans are the latest teams to broadcast the majority of their regular season games from their Diamond-owned regional sports networks to the Bally Sports brand.
Diamond Sports has spent the last 18 months trying to emerge from bankruptcy. Meanwhile, several teams in the NBA, WNBA and National Hockey League have abandoned their regional sports networks in favor of local broadcasters. Some Major League Baseball teams that left those networks now have their games produced by the league.
According to court documents, Diamond Sports will receive $1.3 million and more than $297,000 in repayments from the Mavericks and Pelicans, respectively, as part of the terminations.
The split from the Mavericks and Pelicans comes as Diamond is finalizing broadcast and streaming rights deals with the NBA and NHL for the upcoming season as part of its bankruptcy proceedings. The deals still need to be approved by the court.
“We are grateful for the continued cooperation and long-term partnerships with the NBA and NHL,” Diamond Sports CEO David Preschlack said in a statement, adding that the agreements with the leagues were “another important milestone” on the road out of bankruptcy protection.
Diamond Sports is one of many companies rocked by the decline of cable television. Although it launched a sports-only streaming service for some of its teams in 2022, the company's $8 billion debt load was too much to keep it from filing for bankruptcy.
With the NBA and NHL seasons approaching, Diamond has also been under increased pressure in recent months to develop a viable business plan and demonstrate that the company can pay the required licensing fees.
Diamond reached another milestone this summer when it reached an agreement to return its networks to Comcast's cable television customers. The Bally Sports networks were shut down at Comcast – Diamond's third-largest distributor – in early May.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.
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