Ten Pels Games to be shown on Fox 8 in Nola, WAFB in Baton Rouge, and other local stations

Additional info from Pels press release: LINK

Gray Television will bring ten New Orleans Pelicans games to leading local broadcast television stations

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Gray Television, Inc. and the New Orleans Pelicans jointly announced that they have reached an innovative new sports right deal that will make ten of the Pelicans games during the 2023-24 NBA season available to fans on leading local television stations serving audiences throughout Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The first game scheduled is Friday January 12, 2024 as the Pelicans take on the Denver Nuggets at 8pm.

The new distribution agreement with Gray will make Pelicans games available to more than three million households across three states. It will bring live games in the New Orleans market available on WVUE-TV FOX 8 and Bounce through its free over the air broadcasts along with its carriage on all major cable and satellite pay TV systems including COX, Spectrum, Comcast, DirecTV and Dish Network. In addition, Gray will simulcast these games on Louisiana television stations in Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lake Charles, Monroe, and Alexandria. The games will also be simulcast on Mississippi stations in Biloxi, Jackson, Hattiesburg and Meridian and in Mobile, Alabama.

Following today’s announcement, Gray will seek distribution arrangements for these Pelican games by television stations located in additional markets in Louisiana and Mississippi that are owned by other broadcasters.

“We know people in this region are passionate about their sports. We are thrilled to partner with the Pelicans and make these games available for all fans,” explained New Orleans resident and Pelicans fan Sandy Breland, who is also Gray’s Chief Operating Officer.

“The Pelicans welcome the opportunity to partner with Gray Television in this 10-game deal that will provide over-the-air viewing access to Pelicans games for more than 3 million households and over seven million people across the Gulf South region,” said New Orleans Pelicans President Dennis Lauscha.

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It’s about damn time. This is the Pelicans chance to really build up their fan base. The Pels commentators are an awesome crew too, glad others will get to enjoy them.

Can’t wait to watch a game without their shitty app freezing and crashing.

Fox 8 reporter Madeline Adams: LINK

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Pelicans ?? FOX 8

Watch these 10 Pels games only on @FOX8NOLA
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I bet this is a trial run for Gray to take over full time. Which would be great!

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I bet this is a trial run for Gray to take over full time. Which would be great!

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I could see that happening. Network programming now on some channels except for live sports is almost an afterthought. But I could see, the stations throw it on a Subchannel like Bounce if the ratings or advertising doesn’t meet expectations.

Now as long as Gray doesn’t get greedy like they did in Arizona and command high retransmission rates which led to some providers to drop the channel, it could be a success.

If it does, excuse the pun, get bounced to a subchannel like Bounce, the picture quality is really compressed OTA. On Fox 8 in New Orleans, there are 8 channels on their digital channel. 1 HD channel (Fox 8 main feed), 6 Subchannels for Fox 8 (of various smaller networks like Bounce), and one Subchannel for WUPL since WUPL is the ATSC 3.0 nightlight station broadcasting the 6 major HD feeds of the New Orleans major stations in the new standard that only few people can pickup due to some of the broadcasters using encryption to block certain receivers that are not certified for encryption yet. Also, while Fox 8’s feed of Bounce is on most cable systems, it is not on any satellite provider or virtual cable system like YouTubeTV.

That’s great news! I lost Ballys when I cut down my Direct Tv so I’ve been watching the Pels via bootleg streams and they are crazy unreliable.

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Bounce is on YoutubeTV for me in New Orleans

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Sometimes some video providers will carry the national feed of those subchannel networks.


So it maybe worth looking into if they bounce it to the Subchannel, Fox could pressure Fox 8 to run its line up instead of regional programming, but at this point Fox 8 could be an independent station with the amount of news content it produces each week. Of course they would lose, the NFL.

I know Networks can be a bully at times. Look at WWL, a few years ago they had the number one morning show, and then the network said you have to carry CBS Morning News at 7 instead of bumping it to WUPL.

Anyone know if they will be broadcast in Lafayette area? Didn’t see them mentioned