The Pistons are heading back to free, over-the-air television in West Michigan.
Starting this fall, Detroit Pistons games will air in Grand Rapids on The Spot Grand Rapids 17 and Fox 17 WXMI-TV, the team announced Monday, August 10. The move gives fans in the area another local way to follow the team without needing a cable package.
The announcement comes about three months after the Pistons struck a multi-year deal with Scripps Sports to make it the team’s official lead broadcast home beginning with the 2026-27 preseason and running through the regular season. In the Detroit market, games will air on WYMD-TV (Channel 20). It will be the first time since 2005 that the Pistons shift to a primarily local production and broadcast.
“This move is for our fans," team owner Tom Gores said in a release. "They have been huge all season and throughout this playoff run.
Their energy and support have lifted our team and helped fuel our resurgence. It’s a new era of Pistons basketball and we want to make sure that more people in Detroit and throughout Michigan can be part of the journey.”
Scripps’ reach is part of the reason the Grand Rapids stations are in the mix. The E.W. Scripps Company owns both The Spot Grand Rapids 17 and Fox 17 WXMI-TV.
For fans wondering how they’ll see the full 82-game slate, the local broadcasts won’t cover everything. The NBA’s other national rights partners still handle a chunk of the schedule: ESPN, which also carries games on ABC; NBC, with WDIV-TV, Channel 4 in Detroit; and Amazon.
NBC will show games weekly throughout the season on Peacock and on NBC Sports Network, available through YouTube TV and Xfinity, while Amazon will stream its games on Prime Video. NBA TV is also part of the mix, though those games are usually simulcasts of local broadcasts.
The Pistons say the local package will come with more than just the game itself. Scripps Sports and the team plan to produce full game-day coverage, including pregame, in-game and postgame programming, along with a weekly half-hour Pistons show and other digital content.
There’s also continuity on the broadcast booth side. George Blaha and Greg Kelser are expected to make the move to the new broadcast partner. Blaha finished his 50th season with the Pistons this year and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in September.
This arrangement also extends a partnership that started three seasons ago, when the Pistons agreed to air five of their final nine regular season games on WMYD in March 2024. The team also broadcast five games on WMYD in 2024-25 and 2025-26.
Before this shift, Pistons games had aired on FanDuel Sports Detroit, with the Tigers and Red Wings as well. That channel’s parent company, Main Street Sports Group, is winding down operations after financial trouble. The Pistons originally moved from local TV to what was then called Fox Sports Detroit in 2008, alongside the Tigers and Red Wings.
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