Earlier this morning, the Suns and Mercury announced a new media rights deal that will allow them to broadcast games for free locally on 3TV/CBS5 according to ESPN Brian Windhorst.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!In a possible tipping point move, Suns & Mercury become first teams to walk away from their financially-troubled RSN and are putting their games on local TV for free and on a streaming service: https://t.co/A4c8Tt5qyq
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) April 28, 2023
This is a big-time move by owner Mat Ishbia which now allows both his teams to be removed from their television rights from cable. Starting next season, the teams will be able to broadcast free over the air and stream online on new direct streaming services.
This could cost the Suns tens of millions in guaranteed money per year in the short term. But it will boost the number of household viewership from around 800,000 which they were getting to 2.8 million according to the team.
Ishbia put out a statement explaining the reasoning for this move. “We’re not focusing on money. We’re focusing on winning, success, and taking care of fans, taking care of the community,” new team owner Mat Ishbia said. “What happens is you always end up making money. It always works out.”
“We’re going to have more fans than ever before. We’re going to have more people who will have eyeballs on Devin Booker and Deandre [Ayton] and Kevin Durant, Chris [Paul] and cheer the team on. And more people buying merchandise because they’re bigger fans.”
Ishbia is a believer in appealing to more fans will fluctuate and increase value in other areas including sponsorship deals. He consulted with other owners before making this commitment and he believes it’s the future of where we’re at in television.
“The media world is changing,” Ishbia said. “And we think in Phoenix we’re going to be the leaders starting off with a new way of thinking about it, a new way of doing it.”
This move is happening at the right time for younger viewers in college who may not own televisions or cable to be able to watch the Mercury games this summer for free.
