Another one of the baker’s dozen NBA teams previously under contract with Main Street Sports Group, owner of the FanDuel Sports Networks, is moving over-the-air.

The Miami Heat have struck a deal with local independent station WPLG to be the broadcast home for the team’s local telecasts during the 2026-27 season, the affiliate announced on Monday. WPLG, formerly an ABC affiliate before dropping its affiliation in 2025, is owned by Warren Buffet’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway.

The Heat are the second of 13 teams that were under contract with the now-defunct FanDuel Sports Networks last year to officially make the jump to over-the-air television for next season. The Detroit Pistons announced their jump over-the-air last month. 11 other teams have yet to announce local broadcast plans for next season.

According to a report by Tom Friend in Sports Business Journal, the Heat deal will pay the team “well above the normal OTA range of $10M” for a rights fee, though the exact figure was not disclosed. Even still, however, that fee would come in well below the reported $55 million per year the Heat were scheduled to make in local rights fees during the 2025-26, before the collapse of Main Street.

The deal with WPLG will also include an option for the 2027-28 season, a key factor for many teams who want the flexibility to join the NBA’s potential centralized local broadcast platform if/when it launches before the 2027-28 seaosn.

WPLG simulcast 12 Heat games last season, and those games often doubled, or sometimes tripled, the team’s normal viewership. Per Friend, the network will forego a usual pregame show in favor of using programs like Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and Family Feud as well-watched lead-ins for Heat games. The broadcasts will, however, include an expanded postgame show. WPLG also plans to retain the same broadcast crew from prior seasons.

In addition to the over-the-air option, WPLG will launch a free, direct-to-consumer app called Local 10 Plus Platinum that will allow in-market fans to stream Heat games without any form of subscription.

The Heat become the seventh NBA team to transition local broadcasts from a cable-based regional sports network to local, over-the-air affiliates. They join the Suns, Jazz, Trail Blazers, Mavericks, Pelicans, and Pistons. Per Friend, the Bucks, Cavaliers, Clippers, Hawks, Pacers, Spurs, and Thunder are all also exploring similar deals, while also considering direct-to-distributor models that would go through cable and satellite companies like Comcast or DirecTV.

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