Mat Ishbia, the US businessman and owner of the Phoenix Suns (NBA) and Phoenix Mercury (WNBA) basketball franchises, has agreed a multi-year extension with local broadcast partner Gray Media, under which a new streaming platform will launch to house the rights of both teams.
Through the extension, Gray Media will continue to showcase all Suns and Mercury home games not selected for national coverage live and free-to-air (FTA) through 2030, via the Arizona’s Family and Arizona’s Family Sports channel.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Gray Media will also continue to provide live coverage of the Suns' pregame, halftime, and postgame shows, while adding pregame, halftime, and postgame programming for Mercury broadcasts, which were added this season.
This deal also covers the Suns’ NBA G-League affiliate, the Valley Suns, which was added to the partnership in 2024.
Meanwhile, Suns, Valley Suns, and Mercury games will also continue to be available on the trio’s respective direct-to-consumer platforms, Suns+ and Merc+.
On the back of the extension, Arizona’s Family will launch the Arizona’s Family Sports (AZFS) app, which will host the Suns+ and Merc+ platforms, consolidating the NBA and WNBA rights under one umbrella.
The deal makes Suns and Mercury the first teams in the NBA and WNBA to make their games available to fans under a single broadcast partner across over-the-air and streaming.
Pat LaPlatney, Co-chief executive and president of Gray Media, said: “Mat Ishbia made a fan-first promise to keep these games free and widely accessible across Arizona, and this extension—bringing linear and streaming together in one unified Arizona’s Family experience—takes that commitment even further.
“We’re proud of what we’ve built since 2023, and we’re excited to keep raising the bar for local sports coverage and serving Suns, Mercury, and Valley Suns fans through 2030.”
The latest extension builds on the pair’s partnership, which started in 2023 following the collapse of the Suns and Mercury’s broadcast deal with the then-bankrupt Diamond Sports Group. The deal made Suns the first NBA franchise to distribute its games on FTA television locally. The partnership was then renewed in 2025.
Since moving to Gray Media, Suns and Mercury broadcasts have seen broad availability to all the nearly 3 million homes across the state, according to Ishbia, with more than 110,000 viewers per game (counting all viewers over the age of 18) across Arizona for the Suns during the 2025-26 season, according to media measurement company Nielsen.
Viewership for Mercury broadcasts, meanwhile, has increased 500% since partnering with Gray Media.
Ishbia said: “Making Suns and Mercury games free and accessible across Arizona has been a main focus of mine and will continue to be, because these are truly the community’s teams. This media deal is about putting our fans first, which I have always said we will do, and we will continue to do for years to come.”
Earlier this year, Gray Media secured a local broadcast deal with the WNBA’s Portland Fire expansion franchise and the Portland Thorns NWSL soccer franchise, while also adding the Cincinnati Reds Major League Baseball franchise to its growing list of sports property partners.
