Main Street Sports Group will officially wind down after the first round of the NHL playoffs, SBJ learned Thursday, while sources said Main Street’s 13 NBA teams were informed in a league call Wednesday that they will likely be reimbursed some portion of this year’s lost rights fee payments.
The development is a prelude to seismic change in the local TV industry, with the NBA, for instance, telling the Hawks, Hornets, Cavaliers, Pistons, Pacers, Clippers, Grizzlies, Heat, Bucks, T-Wolves, Thunder, Magic and Spurs that they can begin signing new in-market deals for the 2026-27 season, which is tantamount to a free-for-all.
For linear — where the rights fees will likely be under $10M annually — many of those teams will either switch to local over-the-air channels or their own in-house networks, such as the Cavaliers’ Rock Entertainment Sports Network. For streaming, the NBA is urging teams to sign one-year deals or packages with at least a one-year exit clause, in the event the league does not launch a national streaming platform until the 2027-28 season. But sources said there is a sense multiple teams could shift to a streaming-only template for next season with platforms such as DAZN, Victory+ or ViewLift — which would be a first for NBA teams.
While it was almost a forgone conclusion for months, Main Street’s lenders on Thursday officially signed the paperwork to wind down the business — for the NBA on the last day of its regular season April 12 and for the NHL after any of its seven teams (the Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, Red Wings, Kings, Wild, Predators and Blues) finish the first round of the playoffs. The NHL opening round is expected to begin April 18, with all of the best of seven series likely to end by the end of the month.
In a statement to SBJ, a Main Street Sports Group spokesperson said: “FanDuel Sports Network has reached agreements with the NBA and NHL to broadcast games and other programming through the end of the 2026 NBA regular season and the end of the first round of the NHL playoffs. We are preparing to wind down our operations upon seasons’ end unless we reach a strategic transaction. We’re pleased to finish out the NBA and NHL seasons, and we appreciate the collaborative relationships we have enjoyed with our team and league partners as well as the connections we have fostered with local fans.”
Related to the feasibility of a “strategic transaction,” Main Street has long been in talks to sell its platform to DAZN. And sources said Main Street — knowing it has attractive long-term distribution deals with DirecTV, Charter and Comcast — has held out hope it could reach a deal at the 11th hour.
But other sources said NBA teams were told Wednesday that Main Street will absolutely dissolve in April, and, for months, DAZN has been reaching out to individual teams — independent of Main Street –to acquire teams’ digital rights and get their foot in the door to potentially house the NBA’s eventual national streaming RSN.
But teams had waited to strike any local TV deals, just in case Main Street found an investor. It put those franchises in a bind, though, because Main Street has not made a single rights fee payment in 2026 to any of its 13 NBA and seven NHL partners — and many of those teams had doubted they would ever arrive.
But sources said the NBA franchises, at least, were finally told Wednesday that once they sign a dissolution agreement with the league and with Main Street, they should receive a rebate based on a complex formula related to the NBA/NHL teams and Main Street’s creditors. Multiple sources said it’s possible each team could receive as much as 60% of their lost TV money.