{"id":546123,"date":"2026-04-07T19:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/546123\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T19:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:48:20","slug":"predators-scripps-strike-tv-deal-for-next-season-and-beyond-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/546123\/","title":{"rendered":"Predators, Scripps strike TV deal for next season and beyond | Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Predators have devised a plan for their local telecasts next season following the demise of Main Street Sports Group, which operates the FanDuel sports channel.<\/p>\n<p>The organization will air games next season under a multi-year agreement with Scripps Sports, a move first reported by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/04\/07\/predators-ink-local-broadcast-deal-with-scripps-following-main-street-demise\/?utm_source=sbj&amp;utm_medium=twitter&amp;utm_term=b50d6615-bc0c-4bf1-a7ec-dc1cb078f554\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sports Business Journal<\/a> and later confirmed by the Preds.<\/p>\n<p>Scripps\u2019 ION station in Nashville, WNPX-TV, will carry all preseason, regular season and first-round playoff contests that are not designated for national television \u2014 a collective total of more than 70 games per season.<\/p>\n<p>Three other NHL organizations \u2014 Tampa Bay, Florida and Vegas \u2014 have made similar moves and reported significant viewership increases since moving from cable regional sports networks to over-the-air stations, per SBJ.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going to reach 90 to 95 percent of all the households in Nashville\u2019s [designated market area] immediately \u2014 if we change nothing today, that\u2019s where we\u2019d be \u2014 as opposed to 25 to 35 percent under our old arrangement,\u201d Preds CEO Sean Henry told the site.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHistory shows they\u2019ve done working in the outer markets from their main cities that they partner with, and I have no reason to believe that we won\u2019t achieve the same thing. This way my daughter at Auburn can watch our games as easily as my son in Louisville can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Main Street Sports group, which has endured financial difficulties for years, recently told NBA and NHL teams that it will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/espn\/story\/_\/id\/48388773\/nba-nhl-teams-told-main-street-sports-network-end-operations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">cease operations<\/a> at the end of this season, which for the Predators will either be the end of the regular season or the completion of the first round of the NHL playoff. The NHL\u2019s national affiliates broadcast the playoffs following the first round.<\/p>\n<p>Scripps\u2019 primary station in middle Tennessee, WTVF NewsChannel 5, is expected to provide mainstream promotional support for Preds telecasts on Scripps\u2019 secondary station, WNPX. The latter will be renamed The Spot\u2014Nashville 28.<\/p>\n<p>The Predators and Scripps are also expected to serve as equal partners on a paid streaming service for local telecasts.<\/p>\n<p>Though terms of the deal were not announced, Henry told SBJ the Preds won\u2019t receive as large a rights fee from Scripps as they did from Main Street. But he said the Scripps model is more sustainable and will pay off over time through expanded reach.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom a financial standpoint, we\u2019re going to get almost back to where we were in a very short time span,\u201d Henry told the site. \u201cBut over time, we should get above that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Predators have devised a plan for their local telecasts next season following the demise of Main Street&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5119],"tags":[4945,5,37329,2409,231,5281,285,4,2410,62162,2781,62163,62164,62165],"class_list":{"0":"post-546123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nashville-predators","8":"tag-fanduel-sports-network","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-main-street-sports-group","11":"tag-nashville","12":"tag-nashville-predators","13":"tag-nashvillepredators","14":"tag-national-hockey-league","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-predators","17":"tag-scripps-ion-station","18":"tag-the-nhl","19":"tag-the-sports-business-journal","20":"tag-wnpx-tv","21":"tag-wtvf"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116365158370382059","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}