Hornets Announce Major Broadcast Update Making Basketball Accessible to All Across Charlotte

Watching the Charlotte Hornets in the 704 is about to get a whole lot easier.

On Wednesday afternoon, the franchise announced a partnership with Cox Media Group that will make every non-nationally televised game the Hornets play this season accessible on local TV across the greater Charlotte area. After years on premium cable networks like Fox Sports Southeast and the FanDuel Sports Network, professional basketball in Charlotte will be broadcasted to the masses on WOSC Channel 9 and TV64.

This is an awesome development for the team's regional footprint. Families across the area will have easy access to the Hornets which will only aid in the growth of the fanbase moving forward - the team's stated goal for this decision.

"Everything we do begins with our fans," said Hornets Sports and Entertainment President of Business Operations Shelley Cayette-Weston in a press release. "Our fans are the most passionate and loyal in the NBA, and they deserve every opportunity to watch and connect with Hornets basketball...We're thrilled about the opportunity to re-engage with out fans as we head into a new season with a team on the rise built around an exciting young core of players."

There are still details to be ironed out in terms of markets and television stations outside of Charlotte, along with a direct-to-consumer streaming platform, and those options will be announced at a later date.

On a call with local and national media, Cedric Thomas of Cox Media and Mike Behan, the Hornets' Chief Business and Revenue Officer, detailed some of the reasoning behind the monumental deal.

"As we evaluated a lot of different options, we kept on coming back to this option being the best for us. To be able to provide this over-the-air where we're able to increase the accessibility to our games...more people watching games is better for our organization," said Behan. "That combined with the relationship that we already had from our simulcasts over the last couple of years made the conversation really easy."

Thomas went on to announce that there will be "additional programming" outside of the game broadcasts. WSOC will host a Hornets schedule reveal show on Thursday, August 13th, along with pregame, and postgame shows after every non-nationally televised Hornets contest and more in-season content to be announced.

Behan confirmed that this is a one-year partnership that will be re-evaluated based on the "success of this and the changing and evolving landscape of the sports broadcast universe."

The goal is for this to be the "best broadcast across professional sports," and a major key to it's success will be the talent on it. Behan was unable to confirm if Eric Collins and Dell Curry will be retained in this partnership with WSOC.

"Like many elements of this, some of them are happening in real-time. We understand the importance of Eric and Dell to the broadcast and to the fans here in Charlotte, so more to come on that in the next few weeks...Our intent is to continue to enhance the broadcast and obviously they are a key component of it."

There are more details to come as both the Hornets and Cox Media finalize the particulars of this agreement ahead of the season, but this is a major step in the Hornets continuing to expand their footprint in the greater Charlotte area. Accessibility is a great thing, and the buzz can now be heard across television sets all over the city.

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