Rejoice local Tampa Bay Lightning fans! On Wednesday, the organization announced that they had signed a multi-year deal to broadcast their games over the Scripps Sports Network. For local fans that means they’ll be able to watch the games over the air the old-school way – with an antenna. If that doesn’t work for you, the games will also be broadcast over cable, streaming services, and through the Scripps Sports app. Out-of-town fans will still consume their content through ESPN+.
The Lightning will broadcast their games on Channel 66 WXPX The Spot this fall, but the channel will debut on July 1st. Scripps will also be the broadcast Lightning generated content such as Bolts Beginnings and the Recharge show. The best news is that the channel is available for free with the over the air antenna. Expect Scripps to broadcast all of the games that aren’t picked up by the national broadcasters like ESPN or TNT. They will also be the local broadcast partner for the first round of the playoffs.
Don’t expect any major changes to the broadcast team. Dave Randorf and Brian Engblom will still be calling all of the action along with Gabby Shirley. While Pat Paul Kennedy and Dave Andreychuk were technically part of the FanDuel team, they should make the transition over to Scripps for the studio portion of the show.
The move to Scripps ends a long relationship with FanDuel, even if it’s gone by several names over the years. It should also end a lot of confusion for local viewers as they were caught in the crossfire of carrier-rights disputes over the last few years that made it hard to figure out which cable providers could actually broadcast the games.
Tampa Bay is now the fourth NHL team to join Scripps, following the Vegas Golden Knights, Utah Mammoth, and Florida Panthers. Other teams like the Dallas Stars and Seattle Kraken also have over-the-air broadcasts for their local fans.
Per the press release, “Further information on television programming and channels for locations outside the Tampa Bay market will be made available prior to the start of the 2025-26 season. For the latest information fans can log on to www.TampaBayLightning.com/Watch.”
