PORTLAND, Ore. — Fans wanting to watch Portland Trail Blazers games on TV this season will have a lot more options than they've had in years past.
About a month after announcing that it had ended its unpopular TV partnership with Root Sports, the Blazers have a new TV plan called the "Rip City Television Network," which will feature "BlazerVision," a new direct-to-consumer streaming option offered by the team, and games broadcast over the air.
Danny Marang of 1080 The Fan and the Jacked Ramsays podcast was first to report the news, followed shortly by confirmation by the team.
Here's what Blazers fans need to know about how to watch games this season:
Direct to consumer streaming option
The Blazers have followed the example of other NBA teams and will offer a direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming subscription service. The Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz all launched a similar service over the past year, with prices ranging from $15 to $20 per month or $110 to $180 for an annual subscription.
The Blazers DTC option, "BlazerVision," falls within that range. Streaming access to all non-exclusive games will cost $19.99 a month or $120 per year. Season ticket holders and half-season ticket holders will get the first season for free. Fans who sign up for a full-season subscription before Nov. 1, 2024, will get a pair of upper-bowl tickets to a Blazers game. The monthly subscription will be available Nov. 1, the Blazers said. The team said fans can subscribe at trailblazers.com/watch (as of Monday night, the site still said "coming soon").
BlazerVision will be available via the NBA app and NBA.com and will be supported by any device that supports the app or via a web browser, including iPhone, iPad, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Playstation 5 and XBox One, among others.
Other content will be available on BlazerVision, including "on-demand replays, classic games and exclusive content," the Blazers reported. The service will be available to most residents of Oregon and Washington. Availability will be authenticated by ZIP codes at the time of the subscription purchase.
Over the air
The Blazers will also put their games over the air in Portland for the first time since 2017, when games were pulled off KGW after more than two decades. This ensures that fans will be able to watch games through some cable TV providers or watch the games for free through the use of an over-the-air TV antenna.
The Blazers agreed to a multi-year broadcast rights deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group. All non-exclusive games, meaning all games other than nationally broadcast games, will be broadcast on KATU Charge or KUNP Univision (starting Jan. 1, 2025) in the Portland market and on other Sinclair affiliates throughout the Northwest, according to the Blazers. Fans can visit trailblazers.com/watch to see local channel listings for games (as of Monday night, the site still said "coming soon").
Portland isn't the first NBA team to pull its games off regional sports networks like Root Sports and place them on free over-the-air channels. The Suns, Jazz, Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans all did so in the past year.
"Launching the Rip City Television Network and BlazerVision is a turning point for our fans," said Dewayne Hankins, President of Business Operations, Portland Trail Blazers and Rose Quarter. "We've put our fans first and started a new chapter, making it easier than ever to enjoy Trail Blazers basketball. Whether on TV or streaming with BlazerVision, we believe this is the best way to create lifelong fans and keep them connected. This is a big win for all of Rip City."
Blazers broadcast team to return
The Blazers broadcast team, including Kevin Calabro, Lamar Hurd, Brooke Olzendam, Michael Holton, Neil Everett, Jamie Hudson, Terry Porter and Tom Haberstroh, will return for the 2024-25 season, the Blazers announced Monday. Trail Blazers Broadcasting will also continue to produce the pregame, halftime and postgame show for each game.
Blazers TV history
Monday's development appears to finally close the chapter on a nearly two-decade saga of Portland Trail Blazers fans' struggle to watch games on TV.
Comcast Sports Northwest, which later became NBC Sports Northwest, was the media partner of the Blazers for 14 years, starting in 2007. When the Blazer re-upped with Comcast in 2016, part of the deal stipulated that Portland's games be removed from KGW, which for 25 years had carried anywhere from 16 to 26 games per year over the local airwaves.
Fans were also frustrated by the deal with Comcast Sports Northwest/NBC Sports Northwest because subscribers to DirecTV or Dish Network couldn't watch the games because the provider was unable to reach an agreement on national distribution rights for the channel with either of the major satellite TV channels.
When the Blazers left NBC Sports Northwest and signed a four-year deal with Root Sports in 2021, the deal was hyped as a move that would bring the Blazers broadcast into more homes. While that was technically true, fans with Dish Network still couldn't watch games, the channel wasn't carried on YouTube TV and Hulu, and there were few streaming options.
Finally, last September, right before the season started, Root Sports was pulled from Xfinity's standard package and relegated to the more-expensive “ultimate" tier package of channels. That led, in part, to the Blazers seeing the largest percentage decline in local TV viewership among NBA teams last season, the Sports Business Journal reported in February.
In August, the Blazers announced that they had ended their nearly three-year partnership with Root Sports, one year before their contract with the channel ended, and said "an exciting announcement on the future television home of Blazers basketball" would be made soon.
The Blazers were not the first to depart from Root Sports. Earlier this year, the Seattle Kraken also moved on from Root Sports in favor of linear broadcasts on KGW, KING 5 and KONG in Seattle, and KREM in Spokane.
