Why the Trail Blazers' New Rip City Television Network is Still Not Available on YouTube TV

After briefly appearing on Google's streaming platform, the team's new flagship station is tied up in a distribution battle between Sinclair and YouTube TV.

As the calendar turned from 2024 to 2025, the Trail Blazers celebrated the arrival of their new over-the-air channel, the Rip City Television Network, with a 40-hour marathon of classic games from throughout the franchise’s history.

The new network, KUNP, was converted on Jan. 1 from the Spanish-language Univision channel to the Blazers’ own channel in partnership with KATU, the Sinclair-owned local ABC affiliate that’s been broadcasting the team’s games over the air this season since they parted ways with ROOT Sports over the summer.

But despite the Blazers’ games being more widely available in the Portland area than they have been in decades, between the over-the-air channel, the BlazerVision streaming service through the NBA’s app, and carriage on most cable, satellite and streaming platforms, there’s one major hole that remains: YouTube TV.

Google’s popular live-TV streaming service was one of the major platforms that did not carry ROOT Sports, leading to widespread complaints from fans over the three seasons the Blazers were on that network given that the team’s previous TV partner, the now-defunct NBC Sports Northwest, was available on YouTube TV.

That issue looked set to be resolved on Jan. 1, when KUNP changed over from Univision to RCTN. However, the Blazers did not make the channel’s availability on YouTube TV a major part of their marketing blitz for the new channel when it was announced last fall, because they anticipated there may be a dispute between Google and Sinclair over distribution. That looks to be exactly what’s happened.

For the Blazers’ first game of the new calendar year, Jan. 2’s loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, the channel appeared on YouTube TV’s live guide, still under the old name “Univision Portland,” but its content was blacked out. The blackout appeared to be resolved in the following days, and KUNP’s broadcasts of the Blazers’ Jan. 4 win over the Milwaukee Bucks and Jan. 6 loss to the Detroit Pistons aired on YouTube TV in the Portland area without issue.

Now, the channel is gone entirely from YouTube TV’s channel guide, and there is no clarity on when or if it will be available again.

Spokespeople for Sinclair, KATU and YouTube TV did not immediately respond to emails Wednesday requesting more information on why Blazers games initially aired on KUNP this month before the channel was pulled, and when or if the channel would be restored to YouTube TV’s lineup.

From conversations with people close to the situation, what appears to have happened is this: Sinclair and KATU were under the impression that their previous distribution agreement with YouTube TV for KUNP from when it was Univision would remain in effect after the change to Rip City Television Network. Google and YouTube TV see it differently and feel that the channel changing formats nullifies the previous agreement and they’ll have negotiate a new deal to get the channel back on YouTube TV—or not.

Whether the two sides ultimately come to an agreement is up in the air, and is entirely between Sinclair and Google, out of the Blazers’ control. Other NBA teams that have ditched regional sports networks and gone to an over-the-air broadcast model, including the Phoenix Suns, have run into the same issue with YouTube TV. As the live-sports landscape evolves, networks, teams and TV providers are in uncharted territory that has come with no shortage of speed bumps like this one.

It’s less than ideal for fans or for the team, but that’s the current state of the situation.

The good news is that unlike the previous TV deal with ROOT, there are two foolproof ways to get all of the Blazers’ games that won’t be affected by any distribution disputes between any TV providers and networks: watching the games over the air with an antenna, or buying a BlazerVision subscription.

Until YouTube TV and Sinclair work out a new agreement to get KUNP back on the platform, those are the two best options. They aren’t ideal options, but they’re legitimate ones.