Been frustrated about trying to watch the Canes on FanDual? For two games in November, you’ll have access
It’s been a long time since the local broadcast of the Carolina Hurricanes appeared on anything else but a regional sports network. Despite more people moving away from the old cable model and the continued financial troubles of the sports network that broadcasts them, the Canes have stuck with this model.
It’s proving frustrating for some fans of the team, as the entity that owns this network now—Diamond Sports—has taken a hard line stance with multiple streaming providers, making it to where the only way you’d be able to watch the Canes locally is if you subscribe to the old-school cable package or you pay nearly $30/month for the app that provides the broadcasts. That’s a bridge that not too many people are willing to cross, and it’s cut off access to people across the region.
The Hurricanes aren’t alone in having to deal with this, and other teams have addressed it by either taking over the regional sports network and working with cable providers, or going back to creating a network of television stations available over the air, throwing it back to how these sports used to be consumed. If fans can watch, they stay fans, and they become more likely to buy tickets, merchandise, and so forth.
While we don’t have a full reason as to why the Canes have stuck with this older model, it appears that fans who have been complaining about this have been heard. On Friday, the Hurricanes and President Doug Wharf announced that two games later this month—the home game against the Dallas Stars on November 25th, and the home game against the defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers on November 29th will be shown on free tv, available to anyone with an antenna or a basic cable or streaming cable package. What’ll be shown is a simulcast of the FanDual Network broadcast, not a different production.
The release singles out Capital Broadcasting’s WRAL and WRAZ as the stations that are primarily showing the games. The alliance makes sense, as Capital Broadcasting has been a long time partner of the Hurricanes. They own 99.9 The Fan, the radio home of the team, and their advertising is all over the arena. They also were one of the first to show the Canes locally on their move to North Carolina. The game on the 25th will be on the Fox affiliate, WRAZ, and the game on the 29th will be on the NBC affiliate, WRAL.
That said, it’s not just residents of the Triangle who’ll get this benefit. The Canes have partnered with other stations—owned by Gray Media and Hearst Television—to created a network across the state to broadcast these games. From the site, here is the chart:
This is an impressive collection from the team, and creates real coverage across the two states to broadcast the team. No doubt, FanDuel and the Canes will use this as a chance to get more people to subscribe to the app, but either way the team is finally increasing their visibility, and doing so during a week when a lot of people are home and can watch. It’s also a huge leap by the team to do this for two home games, even with the caliber of opponent it shows they do want people to watch even if it eats into some ticket sales.
If successful, expect to see this more. No doubt this is a test to see how viable something like this would be for the future. If FanDual sees an uptick in subscribers due to this, there’s no doubt they’d be happy to do it again as well.
Truly great news for fans of the Hurricanes.