Spurs latest NBA team to move games from cable to broadcast TV

French phenom and last spring's top overall draft pick, Victor Wembanyama, might be seen by a wider audience in the San Antonio area thanks to a recent move by the Spurs.

On Wednesday, The Streamable reported that the team will air 11 regular-season games on KENS 5, the city's CBS broadcast-affiliate station. The Spurs are the latest NBA team to move some – if not all – of its game broadcasts away from a regional sports network and onto an over-the-air broadcast channel.

Two other teams have transitioned from cable to broadcast TV for the upcoming NBA season. The Phoenix Suns, along with their sister franchise in the WNBA's Mercury, left Bally Sports Arizona as Diamond Sports Group's bankruptcy compelled the new team governor Mat Ishiba to break away from the beleaguered channel. The Utah Jazz also went to over-the-air TV after Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it would shutter or sell its RSNs. Monitoring how those teams will perform away from cable, the NBA champion Denver Nuggets are mulling a change as a years-long carriage dispute has kept Altitude Sports off of Comcast, even as the team ascended to the Finals last spring.

For the Spurs, this has as much to do with testing the waters with distributing their games – which will also be done through KENS 5's streaming  service – as it is preparing for life without Bally Sports Southwest, which Diamond Sports operates. Along with the Spurs, the channel is the current home to the division-rival Dallas Mavericks, the NHL's Dallas Stars and the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball, who just clinched a spot in the American League Championship Series.