The Heat are the latest NBA team to choose an over-the-air template for the 2026-27 season, after finalizing a dual linear-streaming package Monday with Warren Buffett’s lone broadcast station: Miami’s WPLG Local 10.
In somewhat of an outlier deal -- considering Gray and Scripps also house channels in South Florida and the franchise vetted DAZN and Victory+ -- the Heat opted for the familiarity, reach and financial wherewithal of WPLG, which will pay an undisclosed rights fee believed to be well above the normal OTA range of $10M.
Under the umbrella of Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway, WPLG simulcasted 12 of the Heat’s FanDuel Sports Network games last season and more than doubled -- and sometimes tripled -- the team’s normal viewing audience. Enthralled by those possibilities, the Heat and Berkshire Hathaway then negotiated this follow-up one-year deal for next season, with an option for 2027-28.
“For us, we feel very strongly that with the combination of the rights fee that we’re getting and the additional eyeballs -- if we hadn’t seen the business results that we saw last year from just the 12 games, we may have a different conversation,” Heat EVP and Chief Marketing Officer Michael McCullough told SBJ. “But we saw that the increased reach leads to business results. Measurable business results.”
As part of the layered arrangement, handled in house, WPLG is also creating a coinciding DTC app -- Local 10 Plus Platinum -- which will stream Heat games for free. The app’s tech partner will be Zype by Backlight.
The Heat become the seventh NBA team to air linear games over-the-air next season, joining the Suns, Jazz, Trail Blazers, Mavericks, Pelicans and Pistons. Of those six other teams, few have rights fees that have risen much over $10M -- so the blueprint for all of them is to increase revenue through massive reach and the presumed merchandise sales, ad sales and ticket sales that come with it.
“We spent a lot of time this year really analyzing what the upside is for having these games over-the-air,” McCullough said. “Every game we were keeping very detailed records and a lot of data on what the results were from the drop-in announcements that we did, the merchandise that we sold, the tickets that we sold. And everything was a plus, plus, plus, plus, plus.”
The option year following next season was a necessary inclusion, considering the NBA’s aggregated streaming hub is likely to launch for the 2027-28 season or 2028-29 season. The challenge for DAZN and Victory+ -- as it was for Fubo, which dropped its pursuit of teams -- has been how to structure out-clauses with the streaming hub looming perhaps a year from now. But, through WPLG, the Heat gained crucial flexibility.
“Most teams that are in our position -- specifically the teams coming off of the FanDuel -- we kind of have to wait and see what the NBA is going to do with the aggregated solution,” McCullough said. “We don’t want to get out over our skis, but both us and WPLG would like to see this relationship continue even with whatever the NBA is going to be putting on the table. So the good thing is that it’s already baked in. We’ll have something to discuss. We just don’t know what that would look like because we don’t have enough information about what the NBA is going to offer.”
Coupled with the Suns’ recent extension with Arizona’s Family through 2030, the Heat deal is seemingly another sign that OTA stations are an emerging solution for teams, no matter what the NBA does with its impending hub. Industry sources said the Bucks, Cavaliers, Clippers, Hawks, Pacers, Spurs and Thunder are all still exploring local channels or direct-to-distributor templates, especially after Fubo -- which had been offering $8M to $15M-plus rights fees and an attractive direct-to-distributor model -- pulled out of the bidding.
“The Fubo withdrawal really put some teams in the tailspin,” a team source told SBJ. “... I think some teams who were going that path felt like the rug got pulled out a little bit.”
As a result, all ex-Main Street Sports Group teams will absorb a local TV revenue dip this coming season -- although, for perspective, Main Street wasn’t even paying them after December 2025. The Heat, for instance, had a $55M rights fee in 2024-25, according to sources, and roughly the same in 2025-26 before Main Street and its FanDuel-branded networks started defaulting.
But their OTA deal with Buffett’s station, even with a reduced rights fee compared to last fall, still carries intrigue. The advantage of WPLG is its bandwidth and reputation in Miami. The station is a former ABC affiliate that McCullough described as a “local powerhouse” with solid advertising infrastructure.
He said that while WPLG will handle all local and national ad sales in-house -- and retain the bulk of the inventory without a revenue share -- he believes there are creative ways to monetize.
“It depends on the market,” McCullough said. “... And we also have provided [WPLG] with a list of what we’re calling preferred sponsors that are our current partners that either previously were advertisers on FanDuel or maybe would’ve liked to advertise on FanDuel. We can jointly kind of approach those partners and figure out the best way for them to be a Heat partner. It could be they’re continuing their relationship with us, and they’re adding television to it. Those are going to be kind of joint conversations between us and WPLG.”
Unlike Florida’s other NBA franchise in Orlando, which has limited OTA broadcast channel options, the Heat did have those other regional possibilities through Scripps (WSFL Channel 39 televises the NHL’s Panthers) and Gray (WFLX Channel 29 in Palm Beach). But when WPLG dropped its ABC affiliation in August 2025, extensive broadcast windows opened on the channel -- perfect for a full slate of the Heat games. The team will continue to produce the broadcasts and retain its announcing team from prior seasons.
There won’t be a typical 30-minute pregame show. Instead, McCullough said the “big built-in” viewership from lead-in shows such as “Wheel of Fortune,” “Jeopardy” or “Family Feud” should entice new viewers to Heat games and simultaneously bring Heat fans to WPLG. The station will still air the usual halftime show and also a longer-than-normal postgame show, as the Heat re-imagines its local gamecast.