Suns Return to OTA TV in AZ, Will Other Teams Follow?

[Mark Jeffries]

Starting next season, the NBA Phoenix Suns and WNBA Mercury will leave Sinclair's bankrupt Bally Sports Arizona for Gray Broadcasting's indie KTVK and new LPTV KPHE (branded with CBS affil KPHO as "Arizona's Family") for a deal that will have both teams' games not airing nationally on ABC, ESPN or TNT airing on the two stations (KPHE may be low-power, but will eventually have translators all over the state)--KTVK dropped Fox in the mid-90s and never looked back with its successful mix of sports, news and "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune" running in the first hour of prime time at 7 p.m.:

https://www.nexttv.com/news/phoenix-suns-fastbreak-to-broadcast-with-gray-from-bankrupt-bally-rsn?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

As the MLB teams are seeing the Bally regional channels default on payments, there could be a lot of sports teams returning to OTA in the next year.

[Bob Jersey]

Buuuut Diamond, the holding entity for the Bally nets, also plans to complain in bankruptcy court that Gray is breakin' the law...

https://www.nexttv.com/news/bally-parent-diamond-sports-says-suns-breached-contract-with-gray-deal (link)

I wondered where Broadcasting & Cable was... remember seeing their Yearbook, a directory of the industries, in public libraries?

B 

Mark Jeffries, April 28th:

[Brad Beam]

Meanwhile, the Vegas Golden Knights will be shifting to a soon-to-be independent Scripps station, with Ion affiliates throughout the Rockies filling in for AT&T SportsNet.

https://www.ktnv.com/news/golden-knights/vegas-golden-knights-scripps-sports-announce-historic-broadcast-partnership