With the roster settled, the schedule released and Indiana Pacers training camp now less than one month away, one of the biggest remaining questions was where fans would be able to watch local broadcasts.
After Main Street Sports Group, owner of the FanDuel Sports Network, began winding down operations, it was clear that the Pacers would need a new local TV home. And they weren’t alone.
There are 13 NBA teams in the same boat, formerly airing on FanDuel Sports Network and in need of a new local hub for the upcoming season.
After considering their options and having conversations with several interested parties, the Pacers reached agreement with DAZN on a five-year deal that includes an out clause should the NBA bring local TV rights in-house.
The changing regional sports network landscape has been a major source of frustration for fans — and a significant loss of revenue for teams. Local TV rights are typically the largest source of team-generated income.
For several decades, Pacers fans have been accustomed to watching games on Fox Sports Indiana. Then it was Bally Sports Indiana and, most recently, FanDuel Sports Network Indiana. The names changed, but the RSN remained the same operation through multiple ownership and branding changes. Eventually, the business model became unsustainable.
Starting with the 2026-27 season, DAZN will be the home for all local Pacers broadcasts. That excludes the national-exclusive games on ABC, ESPN, NBC, Peacock, and Prime.
They are scheduled to appear on national TV 11 times, starting with Oct. 28 with the Philadelphia 76ers in town (ESPN).
For Indiana, announcers Chris Denari and Quinn Buckner will return for their 21st season together. Jeremiah Johnson will handle hosting and sideline reporting duties, and Eddie Gill will provide analysis before and after games.
For DAZN, this season is a year-long audition — an opportunity to show the NBA it can potentially serve as the distributor for local broadcasts across the league if the NBA brings those rights in-house, which is under serious consideration.
Teams like the Magic and Hornets elected to be available on a free, over-the-air local station, but will utilize DAZN for digital distribution.
For more than a year, representatives from DAZN have been in communication with the Pacers and building a relationship. Zander Berlinski, the senior vice president of strategy and business development at DAZN, praised Pacers Sports & Entertainment CEO Mel Raines and EVP & CCO Joey Graziano for how seamless this process has gone.
“They’ve been amazing to work with, the rest of the Pacers organization (has been) great to work with,” Berlinski told Fieldhouse Files, appearing on the podcast. “I don’t want to speak specifically for their decision-making process, but what I will say is they ran an extremely comprehensive process, with regards to evaluating all the options.
“I think they very much saw this as their number one priority needs to be their touch points with fans and ensuring they made the right decision, with regards to how fans will be able to sort of access their games. And in consideration of all the options on the table and some of the challenges that they may have had historically, they felt we were the best option to go with. This wasn’t like a decision that they reached quickly or easily or lightly.”
DAZN plans to make 22 regular-season games available for free, outside the paywall. You just have to sign up for an account with a name and email address. Berlinski confirmed that you won’t even need to put a credit card down for those free games.
Of those broadcasts available for free, 15 of them will also be available locally on an over-the-air broadcast. The Pacers know the transition will take time. By making nearly two dozen games free initially, they want fans to experience the platform, become comfortable with it and, ideally, stick around.
They’re also providing season-ticket holders with a free Season Pass to DAZN.
Fans can subscribe monthly ($19.99) or annually ($119.99) — but the best value will be signing up for the Early-Bird Special in the next six weeks. Fans can lock in the entire season for $59.99 by Oct. 15.
DAZN is also offering a free seven-day trial.
Even more, all four Pacers preseason games will be available for the second season in a row. That’s significant because typically, just the two games at home were shown on local TV.
DAZN (pronounced da-zone) is a British company that has operated globally for years, but is now making a greater push into premium U.S. sports rights, including the NBA. It is best known in the U.S. for its boxing coverage.
“There’s been a top-down strategic initiative to grow and get greater scale in the U.S. to hopefully have our business here in the U.S. look similar to what it looks like internationally,” Berlinski explained.
“We’re the world’s largest sports only streaming service. We operate in 200-plus markets around the world, have had a huge presence internationally, outside the U.S., for a number of years now. We’re the largest sports rights holder in Europe — in places like Spain, Italy, Germany. We have a lot of the domestic leagues from a soccer perspective exclusively. We’re the largest partner for the NFL internationally. We have every single NFL game in every country in the world other than the US and China.
“So we’ve really built up a huge base of platform and (presence) internationally.”
Through that experience, DAZN is confident that fans will be able to enjoy a clean, working, and reliable Pacers broadcast. Berlinski mentioned having a big customer service team so if someone is having issues, a representative will be able to help 24/7. And they have more than 2,000 engineers working on distribution.
“That’s obviously the basis of our platform and our product is to ensure that we have a great streaming experience for fans,” said Berlinski. “We think we have one of, if not the strongest platform for streaming sports in the world. And so we’re pretty confident in having that sort of baseline experience for fans to ensure that the streaming is top-notch.”
So, Who Needs DAZN?
Simply put, if you previously watched Pacers games on FanDuel Sports Network, DAZN is now where you’ll stream them.
The Pacers’ home territory includes parts of Indiana, Kentucky, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri — although availability within those states is determined by the NBA’s defined local territory.
They plan to answer that question with a simple landing page where you input your zip code to see if you’re inside the local territory.
If you’re outside of the local territory, your option will be to subscribe to NBA League Pass.
“We have an extremely broad distribution footprint,” Berlinski said. “We’re on every mobile device, every tablet, every type of smart TV, game consoles. We’re integrated into certain set-top boxes like the Xfinity box and Xumo box for Spectrum.
“If fans are used to watching on their big screen, living room TV, they’ll still very much be able to do that. It’s not a matter of having to pull it up on your phone and cast it. We have apps on every major device.”
Berlinski also understands the question about older fans having to figure out how to switch to the DAZN app to watch games. It helps that streaming live sports through apps is no longer foreign to fans, with services like Prime Video and Netflix conditioning fans to find major sports outside the traditional cable ecosystem.
He also says that it won’t auto log you out. So once you sign up and log in, you’re in.
DAZN will stream games for the Knicks, Nets, Magic, Hornets, Timberwolves, Pacers, Cavaliers, and likely a few more teams. They plan to integrate stats, other scores, news articles, and additional content into the app.
Pacers fans can expect a dedicated experience.
“The app will always open up with the Pacers front and center in front of them,” said Berlinski. “So we think once we get over the hurdle of people having to recognize moving to a new location and just figuring out the awareness of where the games are, that hopefully it should be fairly seamless.”
He said that their priorities are providing fans with a stable platform and user experience while creating a framework that broadens the exposure and accessibility for fans.
There will be growing pains. There always is when making a switch to something new. But there should be confidence in knowing DAZN’s infrastructure is in place, both from a technical and support standpoint, and that they’ve been streaming live sports globally for years.
They just want to do it at a bigger level.
They have a lot riding on it and will want to make a strong impression with team and league officials.
Here’s how Berlinski says DAZN will measure success in Season 1: “I think, number one, ensuring we get our name out there in the Indianapolis market. (That) fans are aware of where to see the games.
“And then on the back of that, providing a great consumer experience from a product point of view, to show why we think watching in our environment is superior. We’ve proven this around the world, and we’re excited to bring it to fans in market.”
The same Pacers broadcast team now has a new home.
It all gets started on Wednesday, Oct. 7 when the Pacers play the Minnesota Timberwolves. Not only is it their first preseason game, but it’s also Tyrese Haliburton’s official return to the court — and at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, where he played from 2018-20.
The Pacers’ season opener is Oct. 21 in New Orleans, and you’ll only be able to watch it on the DAZN app.
