Suns owner Mat Ishbia defends keeping local broadcasts over-the-air despite poor financials

12 NBA teams formerly tied to Main Street Sports Group, the now-defunct owner of the FanDuel Sports Networks, are still in the market for a local broadcaster next season. Many of those teams will consider following in the footsteps of the Phoenix Suns, the first NBA team to make the jump from a traditional regional sports network to local, over-the-air affiliates as the primary means of distributing local game broadcasts.

The Suns made the jump in 2023 and recently decided to re-up on the over-the-air model until 2030. The problem the Suns face, along with most other teams deciding to move games over-the-air, is that it is far less lucrative than the media rights payouts from traditional regional sports networks.

Suns owner Mat Ishbia doesn’t see that as a problem. He argues that placing games on free-to-air television serves the fan better than placing them inside a pay-TV bundle, or exclusively behind a streaming paywall. Now, he’s advocating for other owners to make the same decision he did.

“It’s maybe not the most financially successful decision from a business owner, financial [standpoint], but it’s the right decision,” Ishbia said in a recent interview. “And I told [other owners], ‘It might not look right on paper from a numbers perspective right away. But the right thing is that long-term it’s the winning play and it’s the right thing to do.’ And it’s our jobs as owners in the NBA, there’s 30 of us, to do the right thing by the fans and build something really cool.

“Do the right thing without any expectation of anything in return. Focus on success, focus on winning, focus on doing the right thing, and money will follow. And guess what? If it doesn’t follow, it still feels great — you did the right thing all the time. …Too many people focus on spending a dollar, I got to make a dollar. Why don’t you just go do the right thing, make it a great fan experience, make it so fans love the team, and you’ll make money down the road, you’ll figure out a way.”

Since the advent of cable, sports leagues and teams have been faced with a tradeoff when it comes to local broadcasts: maximize reach or maximize revenue? For awhile, the choice was clear; enough sports fans subscribed to pay-TV bundles where teams could sell broadcast rights to regional sports networks without fear of alienating large swaths of the fanbase. They could have their cake and eat it too. Now, as people continue to cut the cord and media consumption becomes more fragmented, teams are faced with a real dilemma: milk the old regional sports network model for all its worth at the risk of losing fans who have long since left the bundle, or forge a new path that reaches more fans without an onerous monthly subscription.

The Suns have chosen the latter. And like Ishbia mentioned, it hasn’t necessarily paid off from a financial standpoint. The Suns were making about $36 million per year from local media rights prior to shifting to over-the-air. Now, the team is fighting to claw back to that level of revenue.

The way Ishbia sees it, sacrificing a few million dollars now could pay off in the long run. The Suns, like most teams to shift to over-the-air, have seen a solid increase in viewership compared to the old regional sports network model. If the Suns are successful in creating new fans because games are readily accessible, they’ve just created new customers for life.

With a dozen teams considering their options for next season, it’s possible that at least a handful will make the same bet as the Suns. The Detroit Pistons, the 13th team formerly under the Main Street umbrella, have already announced a move to over-the-air for next season. Perhaps they were simply the first of many.