The PWHL enters its fourth season with something it has never had before: a season-long national U.S. television deal. The league and Scripps Sports announced the partnership on September 9, and it's a meaningful jump in visibility for a league that's spent its first three years building its audience largely through streaming.
What's actually on TV
Under the agreement, Scripps Sports will produce and air a Saturday "Game of the Week" exclusively on ION — a broadcast, pay-TV, and connected-TV network Scripps says reaches more than 128 million U.S. households. Beyond the weekly game, the Scripps Sports Network (a free, ad-supported streaming channel available on Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Prime Video, Fire TV, Google TV Freeplay, and Tubi) will carry two additional national PWHL games every week. ION also returns as the league's exclusive U.S. home for the Walter Cup Finals, plus at least one full playoff series, according to Sports Video Group.
A boost for the league's newest markets, too
The deal isn't just national — it reaches down to the local level for two of the PWHL's incoming expansion teams. Scripps' local stations in Detroit (WMYD-TV, "The Spot – Detroit 20") and Las Vegas (KMCC-TV, "The Spot – Vegas 34") will serve as the local broadcast homes for those markets' new clubs as the league expands into Las Vegas, Hamilton, San Jose, and Detroit for 2026-27 — meaning fans in two of the league's four newest cities will have a local over-the-air option from day one.
Why it matters
A season-long, over-the-air package offers broadcasters the stability needed to build viewership — and the kind of deal a league needs to be taken seriously as a mainstream product. The Walter Cup Finals airing nationally on ION, rather than through a patchwork of streaming-only coverage, points directly at how far the PWHL's audience has grown just three seasons after its January 2024 debut. With training camps opening in November ahead of a 2026-27 season expected to start around Thanksgiving weekend, this is the first real signal of how much bigger the league's stage is about to get.
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