DIRECTV and Scripps Sports Add Live Local, Regional WNBA Games To ION

DIRECTV and Scripps Sports have added live local and regional WNBA games to State Farm® WNBA Friday Night Spotlight on ION. The games will be immediately available to DIRECTV streaming, satellite and U-verse homes, as well as hundreds of thousands of sports bars, restaurants, and other DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS clients.

Just in time for tip off for the 2025 WNBA season, DIRECTV and Scripps Sports announce they will offer WNBA fans all of ION’s 15 weeks of “State Farm® WNBA Friday Night Spotlight on ION” regular season games at no extra charge to their existing DIRECTV packages that include ION Television.

Beginning tomorrow night, and Fridays throughout the regular season, DIRECTV will deliver live WNBA games from regional or local broadcasts to its streaming, satellite and U-verse customers in homes and businesses nationwide as a complement to ION’s weekly national doubleheaders.

The “State Farm® WNBA Friday Night Spotlight on ION” showcases the most regular season games, 50 in all, in thrilling doubleheaders from across the league on Friday nights. ION is available on channel 305 to DIRECTV streaming and satellite customers and 1068 (high definition) and 68 (standard) in U-verse homes.

With this new agreement, DIRECTV will now make extra WNBA games accessible to all fans nationwide via additional national channels that will appear in the guide immediately adjacent to ION’s each Friday night. Scripps’ local stations, which broadcast WNBA games into their local communities, will program the extra channels in the DIRECTV lineup, providing fans with as many as three additional out-of-market WNBA contests every Friday.

“No matter the service they select, wherever they live or do business, DIRECTV customers can now enjoy an entirely new opportunity to choose from as many as twice the WNBA games on Friday nights they would have otherwise been limited to before,” said Rebecca Nelson, senior vice president of content & programming at DIRECTV. “The WNBA is already growing by leaps and bounds, and we’re pleased to bring these new opportunities to current and future fans watching in or out of their homes.”

“This is a win for WNBA fans. Combining the power of Scripps’ local market presence with the reach of ION on DIRECTV, we can bring audiences even more ways to watch the WNBA action this season,” said Matthew Hijuelos, vice president of distribution for Scripps. “At the same time, we’re able to expand the ways that advertisers can reach these highly engaged sports fans.”

The current schedule of games expected to appear on DIRECTV’s expanded “State Farm® WNBA Friday Night Spotlight on ION” include:

About Scripps Sports

Scripps Sports serves professional and college sports leagues, conferences and teams with local market depth and national broadcast reach. Scripps Sports currently has partnerships with the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), the National Hockey League’s (NHL) 2024 Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, the 2023 Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights, the Utah Mammoth, the Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA and the NCAA’s Big Sky Conference. Scripps Sports is a division of The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP), a Fortune 1000 American media company.

About ION

A leading general entertainment network, ION’s lineup features major cable and broadcast shows, original series, live sports and special event programming. ION is part of The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP), a diversified media company focused on creating a better-informed world. As one of the nation’s largest local TV broadcasters, Scripps serves communities with quality, objective local journalism and operates a portfolio of more than 60 stations in more than 40 markets.

About DIRECTV

As a leader in sports and entertainment for 30 years, DIRECTV provides some of the television distribution industry’s best content aggregation, service, and user satisfaction, with or without a satellite. In 2023, DIRECTV elevated the customer experience by delivering Gemini, which can integrate customers’ content from their DIRECTV service and third-party platform subscriptions into a single one-stop, digital experience without switching TV inputs. As consumer behaviors change, DIRECTV is evolving its product with a sharp focus on delivering value to customers through genre-based programming packages, including sports and lifestyle content.