Mavericks, Pelicans games leave local networks amid Diamond bankruptcy

Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans fans are waiting for a new way to watch local games in the upcoming National Basketball Association season.

Both teams are exiting their regional sports networks owned by Diamond Sports, according to a Friday bankruptcy court filing.

The NBA season is set to begin Oct. 22. While neither franchise has publicly announced where its local games will be aired, both teams have a history of televising their games with local broadcasters.

The Pelicans have reached an agreement in principle with Gray Television to air games this season, a person close to the team told CNBC, confirming earlier media reports. Representatives for Gray and the Pelicans declined to comment on the matter.

Last season, the Pelicans aired 10 of their matchups on Gray’s local stations, and the Mavericks, who appeared in last season’s NBA Finals, entered a 13-game agreement with Tegna‘s Dallas-Fort Worth stations.

Representatives for the Mavericks and Tegna did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests asking who would broadcast their local games.

The Mavericks and Pelicans are the latest teams to move the bulk of their regular-season games from their Diamond-owned regional sports networks, which are under the Bally Sports brand.

Diamond Sports has spent the past 18 months trying to navigate its way out of bankruptcy, and along the way, several NBA, WNBA and National Hockey League teams have ditched regional sports networks in favor of local broadcasters. Some Major League Baseball teams that have left these networks will now have their games produced by the league.

Diamond Sports will receive $1.3 million and more than $297,000 in repayments from the Mavericks and Pelicans, respectively, as part of the terminations, according to the court filing.

The split with the Mavericks and Pelicans comes as Diamond enters into broadcast and streaming rights agreements with the NBA and NHL for the upcoming season as part of its bankruptcy process. The deals are subject to court approval.

“We are appreciative of the ongoing collaboration and long-term partnerships with the NBA and NHL,” Diamond Sports CEO David Preschlack said in a statement, adding the deals with the leagues “are another major milestone” toward exiting bankruptcy protection.

Diamond Sports has been one of many companies crushed by the decline of cable. Though it launched a sports-only streaming service for some of its teams in 2022, the company’s $8 billion debt load was too staggering to stop it from filing for bankruptcy protection.

As the NBA and NHL seasons near, Diamond has also faced more pressure in recent months to form a viable business plan and prove it can make the necessary rights payments.

Diamond marked another milestone this summer when it reached a deal to return its networks to Comcast’s cable TV customers. The Bally Sports networks went dark on Comcast — Diamond’s third largest distributor — in early May.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.