SCOTTSDALE — Major League Baseball will continue to broadcast Arizona Diamondbacks games on TV as it had last season, although the club is looking at new ways to increase visibility.

Diamondbacks president and CEO Derrick Hall said the team is negotiating with local stations to bring an over-the-air package of games to viewers this season.

“We’re working on those negotiations right now to see if we could take a package of games, almost like a game of the week, and have those on over-the-air partnership,” Hall said on Monday. “We’re speaking with several right now, and we’re excited about that opportunity.

“We look at our games as really like three-hour, or hopefully shorter than three hours, infomercials to get people to come out to the ballpark. So if we could get folks that maybe don’t have cable or have already cut the cord, but perhaps they have over-the-air, it’ll be an advantage to get to get a larger reach. Those would be simulcast, so if it’s 15-20, games, whatever it ends up being, we would still have those games played on the normal distribution channels.”

Diamondbacks games will continue to air on on the 2024 channels. For Phoenix viewers, COX showed the games on channel 34 while those in Tucson caught them on 26. DirecTV broadcasted on channel 686. Spectrum’s two channels were 304 and 444 while Xfinity/Comcast watched on channel 1261.

For streamers, DBACKS.TV will continue to provide every game for $99.99 per season. Hall said the D-backs had nearly 40,000 subscribers in 2024 and foresees that number jumping above 50,000.

Beyond expanding the number of screens games can be played on, adding an over-the-air package will present the club data when evaluating the future of its broadcasts.

“We’re establishing means right now to measure the lift in the business, to measure the lift in viewership and ratings,” Hall said. “We’re going to do an evaluation after that to see if it makes sense one day to just be exclusively over the air.”

Hall said the Diamondbacks are not the only club to look at this opportunity.

In the wake of Diamond Sports Group’s (Bally Sports) bankruptcy, MLB has taken over broadcasts for several teams, such as the San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins and recently the Cincinnati Reds.

The Diamondbacks have lost the regional sports network revenue stream but have made up funds in other ways, such as the jersey patch and sportsbook at Chase Field. Managing partner Ken Kendrick had previously called over-the-air a challenging financial model, but gaining an insight by using select games is seen as beneficial.

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