Coyotes Excited to go ‘Back to the Future’ in Partnership with Scripps, ABC15

No monthly fees. No subscriptions. No channel shuffling.

Arizona Coyotes broadcasts are going back to the good ol’ days.

The Coyotes announced a groundbreaking multi-year partnership with Scripps Sports on Thursday, guaranteeing that local fans will receive 81 of 82 regular season games over the air in the upcoming 2023-24 NHL season. In doing so, Arizona becomes the second NHL team to make such an offering to their fans – along with the Vegas Golden Knights who have also partnered with Scripps.

The Coyotes also become the third team in the state to provide such a service after the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury announced a similar partnership in July.

Under the terms of the deal, 81 of 82 Coyotes games will be broadcast in Phoenix on channel 15.2 (KNXV.2) over the air with an antenna. Scripps stations will also broadcast all Coyotes games in Tucson (KGUN 9.2), as well as in the other areas of Arizona’s “sphere of influence,” which includes both New Mexico and Utah.

The games will be produced and distributed in High Definition (HD).

“What an amazing partnership. It’s innovative, it’s forward-thinking, and I really tip my hat to Alex Meruelo because it started with his goal and vision of saying, ‘How do we create a solution in this fast-changing media landscape that really has our fans in mind?’” Coyotes President and CEO Xavier A. Gutierrez said. “ABC 15 and the Scripps organization, they just have such great trust and credibility here in this community. The commitment that they’re making to us is ensuring that not just our games, but really our brand, and everything that we stand for as an organization is out in the community.”

Gutierrez said the partnership was born out of the desire to allow local fans access to Coyotes games at no charge, something that has not been commonplace since before regional sports networks started dominating the local sports scene.

Once Diamond Sports Group, LLC – the previous owner of Coyotes telecast rights – submitted a motion and proposed order to reject the team’s telecast rights agreement in bankruptcy court, Arizona and Scripps wasted no time striking up the new, groundbreaking partnership.

Meruelo and Gutierrez and ultimately came to terms on the deal that’s only the second of its kind in the entire NHL, which also just happens to be through Scripps Sports.

“We’re going back to the future in terms of broadcasting our games over the air,” Gutierrez said. “We believe in what Scripps is doing to build out the sports network they want, and we know this is the right thing to do for our fans, for our fans in waiting, and for our partners in terms of giving them almost three million households in terms of reach.”

Scripps Sports President Brian Lawlor said the company’s partnership with the Golden Knights, which has already seen preseason games produced and distributed, has been instrumental in allowing the team and the organization to turn around an agreement so quickly.

Under normal circumstances, the short timeline would have been an intimidating one considering the deal required approval from the NHL, Diamond Sports Group, LLC, and bankruptcy court. Those hurdles were cleared earlier this week, and Scripps’ production of Golden Knights games allows for the sharing of best practices, learning, technology, and even vendors.

It all adds up to a win for local fans who simply need to buy a digital antenna and plug it into their TV to start watching games, breaking the mold of how sports have been consumed for decades.

“I think we’re going to build a whole new level of fandom and give access to this team to everyone,” Lawlor said. “As this team grows and has a playoff run everyone will be able to share in it and enjoy it.”

The news comes at an exciting time for the Coyotes organization, which added Jason Zucker, Alex Kerfoot, Logan Cooley, Matt Dumba, and Sean Durzi this past offseason, complimenting the already-established core of players that includes Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Barrett Hayton, Matias Maccelli, Dylan Guenther, J.J. Moser, and Juuso Valimaki.

General Manager Bill Armstrong said he’s excited for what the partnership can bring to Coyotes fans as the team looks to play in more meaningful games in 2023-24.

“Fans can tune into basically every regular season game for free, so it’s giving back to our fans, our people. I love that,” Armstrong said. “It’s going to be an exciting relationship. The TV landscape is obviously changing, but the two things that sell right now are live sports and news, and we’re one of them. We couldn’t be more excited about our product going live with Scripps and ABC15.”

Each broadcast will include pregame and postgame coverage with fans’ favorite Coyotes broadcast personalities, including play-by-play announcer Matt McConnell, color analyst Tyson Nash, and hosts Todd Walsh and Jody Jackson.

The team is still ironing out additional details of the partnership, such as a direct-to-consumer streaming options, which Gutierrez said both the team and Scripps are committed to providing. Details will be announced when those plans are finalized, but all local fans need to do is connect an OTA antenna and Coyotes games will be right at their fingertips.

“This has been very fast moving, it’s taken a lot of iterations, and it will continue to do so,” Gutierrez said. “When Alex (Meruelo), his family and I sat down and looked at our options, we looked at how we could be forward-thinking and best-in-class, and how we could utilize technology, be tech savvy and tech enabled.

“This allows us to do that.”