{"id":720044,"date":"2026-06-22T23:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/720044\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T23:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:04:09","slug":"scripps-sports-in-acquisition-mode-amid-nhl-nba-team-offseasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/720044\/","title":{"rendered":"Scripps Sports in acquisition mode amid NHL, NBA team offseasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

With NBA and NHL teams now laser-focused on offseason business, Scripps Sports \u2014 with local rights to five hockey teams and one basketball team \u2014 is in acquisition mode. Scripps already locked up the Pistons last month<\/a> and was in the running for the Heat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a business model that\u2019s working really well for us … in markets that we\u2019re already doing business where we have typically an NBC, ABC, CBS or Fox station,\u201d Scripps Sports President Brian Lawlor said. \u201cWe\u2019re in 40-something markets. There\u2019s still other NHL and other NBA markets that check that box, and we\u2019ve gotten a lot of calls from other teams that aren\u2019t in our in markets [where] we might own an ION but we don\u2019t own like an ABC, NBC, CBS.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, just because Scripps doesn\u2019t have a Big Four station in certain NBA or NHL markets looking for a solution doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t get one set up. \u201cWe\u2019ve chosen not to yet,\u201d Lawlor said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a news brand and a sales team and those relationships, and all of that is really important for us in being able to amplify and advance. But down the road \u2014 we\u2019re clearly executing on sort of \u2018Scripps Sports 1.0\u2019 [right now] \u2014 maybe moving to 2.0 with some level of maturity that didn\u2019t exist a couple years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scripps does local game distribution for the Golden Knights<\/a> (whose owner, Bill Foley, launched a bid for an NBA expansion team<\/a> Monday afternoon), Mammoth<\/a>, Predators<\/a>, Lightning<\/a> and Panthers<\/a>. Lawlor said that, while many in the media and hockey business were cautious at first, those relationships have turned out to be fruitful.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur thesis that the teams were seeking reach and over-the-air broadcast could really dramatically extend their reach was spot on,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were things that we believed early on that we got wrong, but we were able to then sort of tweak it and advance it. \u2026 We\u2019ve opened up a lot of new sponsorship opportunities. \u2026 We\u2019re able to just take a lot of those sponsors and sort of upsell them into sports, and then there\u2019s a whole lot of other businesses that are not traditional advertisers but lean into sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the NBA and NHL both reportedly look to develop national solutions for local broadcasts, Lawlor, who said Scripps\u2019 relationship with the NHL league office has been great, sees the company continuing to provide a crucial function.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NBA obviously floats it all the time that they want to consolidate their digital rights, but still be on linear or potentially down the road roll up on linear,\u201d Lawlor said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve proved in the NHL \u2014 these games on free, over-the-air television are really valuable and they reach a ton of fans, and that\u2019s not going to be the case tucked behind a paywall.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With NBA and NHL teams now laser-focused on offseason business, Scripps Sports \u2014 with local rights to five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,385,99],"class_list":["post-720044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}