Another one of the baker\u2019s dozen NBA teams previously under contract with Main Street Sports Group, owner of the FanDuel Sports Networks, is moving over-the-air.<\/p>\n
The Miami Heat<\/a> have struck a deal with local independent station WPLG to be the broadcast home for the team\u2019s local telecasts during the 2026-27 season, the affiliate announced<\/a> on Monday. WPLG, formerly an ABC affiliate before dropping its affiliation in 2025, is owned by Warren Buffet\u2019s holding company Berkshire Hathaway.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Heat are the second of 13 teams that were under contract with the now-defunct FanDuel Sports Networks last year to officially make the jump to over-the-air television for next season. The Detroit Pistons<\/a> announced their jump over-the-air<\/a> last month. 11 other teams have yet to announce local broadcast plans for next season.<\/p>\n According to a report by Tom Friend in Sports Business Journal<\/a>, the Heat deal will pay the team \u201cwell above the normal OTA range of $10M\u201d for a rights fee, though the exact figure was not disclosed. Even still, however, that fee would come in well below the reported $55 million per year the Heat were scheduled to make in local rights fees during the 2025-26, before the collapse of Main Street.<\/p>\n The deal with WPLG will also include an option for the 2027-28 season, a key factor for many teams who want the flexibility to join the NBA\u2019s potential centralized local broadcast platform if\/when it launches before the 2027-28 seaosn.<\/p>\n WPLG simulcast 12 Heat games last season, and those games often doubled, or sometimes tripled, the team\u2019s normal viewership. Per Friend, the network will forego a usual pregame show in favor of using programs like\u00a0Wheel of Fortune,\u00a0Jeopardy, and\u00a0Family Feud as well-watched lead-ins for Heat games. The broadcasts will, however, include an expanded postgame show. WPLG also plans to retain the same broadcast crew from prior seasons.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n In addition to the over-the-air option, WPLG will launch a free, direct-to-consumer app called Local 10 Plus Platinum that will allow in-market fans to stream Heat games without any form of subscription.<\/p>\n The Heat become the seventh NBA team to transition local broadcasts from a cable-based regional sports network to local, over-the-air affiliates. They join the Suns, Jazz<\/a>, Trail Blazers, Mavericks<\/a>, Pelicans, and Pistons. Per Friend, the Bucks, Cavaliers, Clippers<\/a>, Hawks<\/a>, Pacers<\/a>, Spurs, and Thunder are all also exploring similar deals, while also considering direct-to-distributor models that would go through cable and satellite companies like Comcast or DirecTV.<\/p>\n The post Miami Heat strike over-the-air deal with WPLG for local broadcasts<\/a> appeared first on Awful Announcing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another one of the baker\u2019s dozen NBA teams previously under contract with Main Street Sports Group, owner of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,559,188,677,144,92718,423,92719,69640,166,295,189,3881,6,114,1176,26204,92717],"class_list":["post-756070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami-heat","tag-basketball","tag-clippers","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-hawks","tag-heat","tag-heat-games","tag-jazz","tag-local-rights","tag-main-street-sports-group","tag-mavericks","tag-miami","tag-miami-heat","tag-miamiheat","tag-nba","tag-pacers","tag-the-heat","tag-tom-friend","tag-wplg"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116716685670444543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}