Milwaukee Bucks latest team to telecast games on local broadcast TV
from Jason Clinkscales, with YardBarker.com/www.yardbarker.com
Change keeps coming to the Milwaukee Bucks, though this change is one that their fans should love.
Starting in late February, Weigel Broadcasting, the owner of two local CBS affiliate stations in the Milwaukee region, will broadcast 10 regular season games.
On Sunday, Emmett Prosser of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that these games are being moved from Bally Sports Wisconsin and will be the first Bucks games shown on free television since the 2006-07 NBA season.
Just announced! @WMLWTheM is the place to watch 10 premium @Bucks games. Take a look at the schedule and how to find WMLW The M on your TV provider. Let's go Bucks! ? Bucks on The M
? 1st game Feb. 23
? @ Minnesota
? 7:00 p.m.https://t.co/PjAf6Lfkhe pic.twitter.com/g7rLdh1jXI— CBS 58 News (@CBS58) January 28, 2024
The Bucks are one of several teams in American major pro sports that have moved at least a portion of its games from regional sports channels to local broadcast television in the past year.
Most recently, the Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans Pelicans began their own separate 10-game deals with local affiliates in their markets. Shortly after Mat Ishiba purchased the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and their sister WNBA franchise Mercury last year, he signed a pact with Gray Broadcasting to move all of their games to local channels that serve their market, sparking the eventual demise of Bally Sports Arizona.
The Utah Jazz and San Antonio Spurs also moved games to free TV as well as the Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights.
Of course, the majority of teams that are moving games to over-the-air stations are caught up in the Diamond Sports Group dilemma as the owner of the Bally Sports channels is hoping to restructure with the help of Amazon in hopes of emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In November, the NBA reached a deal with DSG where teams contracted with the media company would remain with it until the end of the current season.
Bally Sports Wisconsin will still have several broadcasts during the remainder of the regular season, but it’s worth noting that nothing has been said about the playoffs just yet. Presuming that the Bucks won’t collapse, the title contender is certain to play a first-round series in the postseason. Although playoff games are nationally televised by TNT, ESPN, ABC and NBA TV, generally the local broadcaster of a given team will also show some if not all the games of the first-round series.
Will those games remain on Bally Sports Wisconsin, or could they end up on the local channels as what’s being done in this 10-game trial (save for any games picked by national broadcaster ABC)?
Either way, the Bucks are the latest team that seems to be preparing for life after the faltering regional sports network model.