Tucson’s 2nd major cable outlet does not have an agreement to carry club’s NBA games

By David Kelly

UPDATE (Nov. 1): Comcast sent Wildcats Radio 1290 a second statement after we followed up with them on current talks with Arizona’s Family Sports on a Suns TV deal:

Comcast and Arizona’s Family Sports are not negotiating a carriage agreement at this time.

TUCSON – Half of Tucson is in the dark when it comes to the Phoenix Suns.

The NBA team this summer announced a new TV carriage deal in which they took the games to free TV (Arizona’s Family Sports) ending a longtime partnership with Bally Sports Arizona (formerly Fox Sports Arizona).

The issue at hand as the NBA season gets underway is that the games are currently not available on one of the two cable outlets that services metropolitan Tucson.

Tucson residents who get their cable TV through Cox can view the games on Channel 19.

The Suns also have a deal with Fubo to air the games in the Tucson market however they do not yet have an agreement with Comcast Xfinity which covers much of the north side of Tucson.

If you have Xfinity Cable the only way you can access the games currently is to pay for the Suns new streaming service on Kiswe ($14.99/month) or get one of the over-the-air digital antennas that will allow you to tune in the games on the KOLD-TV subchannel 13.5.

Wildcats Radio 1290 reached out to Comcast Xfinity and received this statement:

We are mindful of rising programming costs – most notably for broadcast TV and sports carriage – in deciding what content is most important to secure for our customers at a particular price given the different ways content can now be accessed.  The Phoenix Suns have chosen Gray Television, the owner of Arizona’s Family Sports, as their new local broadcast partner after their agreement with Bally Sports Arizona ended. Carrying the Phoenix Suns on Arizona’s Family Sports would increase the costs for all of our customers whether they want to watch the Phoenix Suns or not. Customers can access the Phoenix Suns games on the channels with the use of a digital antenna to get an over-the-air signal or by streaming it on Kiswe.

A statement on the Suns website:

• Arizona’s Family is currently having conversations with other providers about picking up Arizona’s Family Sports.

Arizona’s Family vice president and general manager Debbie Bush tells Wildcats Radio 1290 they are in discussions with both Comcast and Hulu as well as satellite services Direct-TV and DISH Network for carriage of the Suns games in Tucson.

The Suns currently say the games are available to more than 2.8 million homes across Arizona. WNBA contests involving the Phoenix Mercury aired this past season on Arizona’s Family Sports.

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