New Orleans Pelicans moves games to over-the-air TV

Follows move by Bulls, Blackhawks, and White Sox Monday

Expected after the soon-to-be-defunct Bally Sports New Orleans and the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans parted ways, the team announced a multi-year deal with Gray Television to form the Gulf Coast Sports Network to air all non-network games on Gray’s stations stretching from the Ark-La-Tex area to the Florida panhandle starting next month. This means more viewers will see Pelicans stars Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram in the NBA’s second-smallest television market, as the New Orleans area ranks 50th for the upcoming season.

The flagship station is Gray’s WVUE, which will air games on a new, over-the-air channel located on 7.1, according to The Desk, using existing infrastructure to do so (it will not be created from scratch.) WVUE is on Channel 8 via PSIP as it’s a real, virtual channel located on 29 (dating back to the analog era, WVUE has been on Channel 8 since 1970 when it was an ABC station.) 

Eight games will be simulcast on WVUE’s main channel, a Fox affiliate. 

Together, the new Gulf Coast Sports Network will reach seven million households in five states through ten stations with eight of the ten on Gray’s dot two, three, and five channels, including KSLA Shreveport; WAFB Baton Rouge, La.; KLGC Lake Charles, La.; WALA Mobile-Pensacola; and WLBT Jackson, Miss. It is unknown if any stations would carry the games in high definition. 

This comes a day after the new CHSN announced a deal with Tinley Park/Hammond-based religious independent WJYS to take over its 62.2 and 62.3 channels for carriage. This will enable Chicago viewers to watch the Bulls, Blackhawks, and White Sox non-network regular season games on over-the-air TV for free with an antenna. DirecTV announced a carriage deal with CHSN on Wednesday, taking over NBC Sports Chicago’s old positions.

The first regular-season game takes place on October 23 against the Bulls, airing on CHSN and Gulf Coast in their respective home markets.

“Fans in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast are ready for Pelicans basketball to be available to them subscription-free,” said Mikel Schaefer, who is Vice President and General Manager of WVUE. “We saw how much fans wanted this last season when the ten Pelicans games we broadcast had the highest ratings ever for the team.”

Those ten games on the same network of stations tripled the audience numbers on average compared to Bally Sports New Orleans. 

This is the latest development in the ongoing migration of sporting events back to broadcast as the traditional regional sports network model continues to be downsized. Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Bally has cut loose several teams, including the Pelicans and, most recently, the rival Dallas Mavericks, who struck an over-the-air deal with Tegna ABC affiliate WFAA and independent KMPX. Since moving from Charlotte (as the original Hornets) in 2002, the Pelicans had their games carried on cable by Cox, then Fox Sports New Orleans, which later became Bally after Diamond purchased Fox’s RSNs in 2019. 

Like CHSN, The Pelicans haven’t unveiled any plans for a streaming component.