No More Bally Sports for the Pelicans and now the games are available over the air for free, except for the ESPN and TNT games.
Also this gives the Pelicans reach all over Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, instead of being locked to the 350,000 in New Orleans, you have access to potentially 7 million people across the Gulf Coast.
The Pelicans
left Bally Sports and partnered with Gray TV so they could dramatically increase their TV audience.
Last season, the Pelicans showed 10 of their games on free, over-the-air TV. The seven games they broadcast on WVUE-TV Fox 8 drew an average of 46,057 TV households, which represented a 260% increase compared to the average number of TV households that watched the team play on Bally Sports.
It’s conceivable the Pelicans could more than double their TV audience in the first year of showing games on the Gulf Coast Sports & Entertainment Network.
The Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns both shifted to an over-the-air TV model before the start of last season. Utah’s local viewership increased by 39%, while Phoenix’s shot up 69%, according to Sports Business Journal.
There was no legal way to watch Pelicans games for free when the team was partnered with Bally Sports. Now, there is. Anyone with an antenna in the Pelicans’ three-state coverage area can watch the team play on the Gulf Coast Sports & Entertainment Network.