Trail Blazers Fans Falling Victim to Latest Comcast, ROOT Sports Changes

Making sense of the latest curveball with the Blazers' broadcast partner.

With just two weeks until the start of the 2023-24 NBA season, many Trail Blazers fans got hit with an unexpected and unwelcome curveball. Comcast told subscribers earlier this week that they were removing ROOT Sports Northwest, the channel that broadcasts Blazers games as well as the Seattle Kraken and Mariners, from their standard channel lineup and making it available exclusively as part of the "Ultimate" channel lineup, which costs significantly more per month.

It's not news anyone wanted this close to the start of a new season and a rebuild many fans are excited about. Unless they already pay for the higher tier of channels on Comcast or subscribe to one of the handful of other platforms that carries ROOT, they just got the rug pulled out from under them. The team certainly isn't happy that fewer fans will be able to watch their games.

"The sports broadcasting industry is rapidly evolving, and like many sports teams we are experiencing it in real time," the Blazers said in a statement on Wednesday. "Our goal is always to provide the best broadcast to the most fans we can. We were just made aware that Xfinity has moved ROOT SPORTS to a different package, and are exploring solutions to help ease the transition and impact on our fans. We encourage fans to visit rootsports.com to check all providers in their area and to contact Xfinity to ensure their package includes ROOT SPORTS."

When the Blazers left NBC Sports Northwest in 2021 to move to ROOT, they faced widespread complaints about the channel not being available on many of the most popular streaming platforms, including YouTube TV and Hulu. The only streaming platforms that carry ROOT currently are Fubo TV and DirecTV Stream. The team had a deal with a company called Evoca that provided a streaming alternative, but that service went out of business in the middle of last season.

(I myself already pay way too much money for the highest tier of channels that Comcast offers and have accepted the reality that I'll never be able to cut cable because I need it to do my job, so this news doesn't personally affect me. But I feel for the friends and family members I've talked to, as well as readers I've heard from, who have had to resort to pirated streams to watch Blazers games since the switch to ROOT. Most of them are happy with their subscriptions to YouTube TV or a different streaming provider that carried NBCSNW and don't want to switch to an entirely different platform just to watch games. It's a bad situation for everyone involved.)

The Blazers are relatively unique among NBA teams in that they own and produce their game broadcasts in-house, as well as handling advertising sales themselves. The people who work on their broadcasts, including on-air talent and behind-the-scenes producers, are employees of the team, not the network. ROOT pays them an annual fee for the right to broadcast the games but doesn't have any input into the broadcasts themselves. The ability to maintain creative control over their broadcast product was one of the driving forces, just as much as the money, in the Blazers' decision to sign with ROOT in 2021.

The downside is that the Blazers, in turn, do not have any ownership interest in ROOT and have no control or influence over which cable and streaming providers do or do not carry it. The team can make it known behind the scenes that they want their games to be available on more platforms—and they have—but ultimately, those negotiations are between ROOT and those providers.

According to sources, the Blazers have two years remaining on their deal with ROOT, not including a team option for the 2025-26 season. The contract includes language requiring their games to be available to a certain percentage of households. It remains to be seen whether Comcast's announcement that the channel is being cut out of their standard tier of channels will drop that number below the threshold.

With an eye on the long-term future, the Blazers have begun to test the waters for other broadcasting setups. Their preseason finale this coming Monday will be broadcast over the air on FOX 12 Plus.

Their opponent in that game, the Phoenix Suns, made news in April by moving their games to be broadcast over the air locally. Suns owner Mat Ishbia said at the time that foregoing the annual rights fees that come from a deal with a Regional Sports Network (RSN) will be worth it in the long run because making their games available for free to as many people as possible will ultimately create more new fans and drive ticket and merchandise sales. (Ishbia also owns the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury and moved their games over the air, too.)

The Suns were able to move forward with this model because their previous broadcast partner, Bally Sports Arizona, was a part of the Diamond Sports Group family of RSNs that has been in bankruptcy for months and affected over a dozen NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball markets. The Diamondbacks and Coyotes cut ties with the channel as well.

The Utah Jazz also drew a wave of positive press last month with the launch of Jazz+, a direct-to-consumer streaming service available to fans in the Salt Lake City broadcast area that will air all of their games and cost $15.50 per month or $125 per year. The annual subscription includes a Jazz t-shirt and hat as well as two tickets to a home game in addition to streaming all 82 games—in my own view, a lot of value for the money.

It will not be a surprise to see the Blazers ultimately go to one of these two models, or a hybrid of the two, after the ROOT deal is up. Executives on the business side feel that they will be well-positioned to make that jump because they own and produce their own broadcast. For now, unless something changes, they're locked in for two more seasons on a deal that's resulting in fewer and fewer people being able to watch their games.