Subscribe Feed (RSS)I have learned today from two sources that telecasts of Portland Trail Blazer games may finally be accessible to a much wider audience this season, even though there’s no word of any sort of immediate resolution in the battle between Comcast and the satellite TV companies.
During the offseason, the NBA apparently decided that teams could make live telecasts of their games available on their web sites, but left it up to individual teams to decide whether to do it. And what I’ve heard is that the Trail Blazers have already decided to stream all their games live this season on their web site.
I’m not sure how that impacts the relationship between Comcast Sportsnet and the Trail Blazers, but it’s well known that the Trail Blazers have been frustrated that their games have not been available to a wider audience than just those with cable TV connections. Comcast has been negotiating with Directv and Dish Network for more than two years, trying to reach an agreement that would allow Comcast Sportsnet Northwest to be available via satellite. But no deal has been made and such a deal does not seem imminent.
There were several web sites last season that pirated the signal of Trail Blazer telecasts and aired them on the Internet. The NBA has attempted to halt that piracy with varying degrees of success.
Major League Baseball has opened up a solid revenue stream by making its games available for a price on the Internet. All MLB games throughout the season and in the postseason are available — for a price – on the web.
No word yet on what the NBA or the Blazers will set as the cost of watching the games, whether they’d be available on a per-game basis or only on a season basis.
The Trail Blazers Tuesday refused comment on this story.
Tags: Comcast Sportsnet, Directv, Dish Network, Dwight Jaynes, NBA, Portland Trail Blazers
Sounds like progress. I hope it’s true.
The NBA has had online games available for the last year at ~$100 for the entire season. A League Web Pass for all games.
So now they are breaking that up and letting you purchase packages for individual teams?
Sounds great, if so.
well dwight if that is the case and the blazers do deceide to stream all their games i think that is and incredibly good deceision. it goes to show that they still haven’t lost the pulse of the fans in the area. it all starts tonight. MAD DOG MEAN!! FANGS AND FOAM BABY FANGS AND FOAM!!
Well that’s good news. Now then even when I am on the road maybe I can get to watch some games. I live out of state. Well out of the blackout area. So I can get the games off DirectTV league pass at home. I tend to believe what Dwight says that a deal between the dishes and Comcast is still a long way off. Comcast recently pulled the VS channel off of DirectTV cuz Direct says they wanted blood money to keep it. So if Direct won’t pay Comcast’s price for VS that surely would have a more national appeal than Blazers NW channel. I can’t imagine a deal for the CNW is in the realm of possibility this season.
I love that idea, to be honest. It’s the best way to make everyone happy save for Comcast to be available everywhere in the world.
That would be great!!! The pipe owners should not ever be allowed to be content owners creating a conflict of interest as this demonstrates.
Awesome.
That means a DirectTV and DishNetwork deal won’t be far behind.
The value of holding CSN exclusive will be diminished if the Blazers broadcast the game as well since fewer people will switch just for the games if they can get them on the net anyway. If this is true, Comcast will scramble to make a deal before DirectTV and Dish Network reduces their offers.
Just like if you knew ahead of time that a player was going to have a dramatic drop in stats, you would trade him before it happens. It is possible the Blazers are just saying this to force the issue and are hoping that Comcast doesn’t call their bluff. It isn’t cheap to support that much bandwidth.
I hope a deal with DireTV, Dish, Charter etc. gets put in place before the season is over. This is just crazy. Who is at fault? Is Comcast too greedy? Why don’t the Blazers step up and help.
A ray of hope at least! Do the right thing Blazers! From a Charter subscriber with no access to Comcast. I do not want to be shut out of the part for yet another year!!
I know the MLB games (on MLB.com) are blacked-out in the local market … and I would imagine the same is true with the NBA.com package? But I have to think that this Blazers.com “solution” will not be blacked out. Lets hope the rest of you are correct about this being what causes Comcast to finally get reasonable in its “negotiation” with the other providers. I’m skeptical. Even more so of Larry Miller’s promise that this situation will be resolved by the start of this season! And sitting in front of my computer watching games is NOT a solution!!! (a step, yes – a solution, no!)
Even if CNW does deal with DirectTV and DishNetwork it will probably only be for SD and NOT HD.
I’m on Verizon FIOS and not happy at all that Comcast isn’t doing HD for FIOS.
As a frequent internet pirate of blazer games, I would pay a small monthly fee to see legal, high-quality, reliable streams.
Thank God the Blazers organization is finally doing something about this travesty!!!
Down with Comcast!!! Down with the Evil Empire!!!
I’d still MUCH rather watch on my TV than on my computer.
Up here in Seattle, most of us completely lost sight that the pre-season has begun! We’re able to get Blazers games, if we have the right cable provider, and of course we’re big Brandon Roy fans. He and I went to the same high school, although he’s about 10 years younger than me. By the way, I think that if we get an arena deal done, the Kings are my top team to relocate here.
hook up your computers to your TV! It’ll only be a short while before that becomes the norm. Be ahead of the curve people! I just hope the webfeed is high quality.
Yep, I currently have my laptop hooked up to my 42″ flat screen via svga cable and it looks amazing – not quite High Definition but real close to it. I can’t wait for the webfeeds!!!
Yeah, you buy a $300 computer and hook it up to your flat screen. I have the setup in my house with a computer from 2005 — video streams work great. For someone that lives on the east coast now, but grew up watching the Blazers, this is the best news ever.
Dwight, but don’t let the Blazers off the hook on this Comcast deal. It’s still appalling at best that we have to go to these lengths. Comcast has not shown any indication it has ever negotiated in good faith.
Dwight–I noticed that John Canzano’s article in the Oregonian recently mentioned that Comcast blocked a plan by the Blazers to stream games over the internet. Does that mean this plan is now toast?
–A hopeless fan in La Grande
I think that if you live in portland you should be able to watch all of the Blazer games for FREE, screw comcast and the whole cable/satalite idea were friggin broke out here and not everyones got comcast on hd ipod or whatever, Im tryin to watch my team play every game and not have to pay a rediculouse 150 bucks a month, i would rather buy a video camera and record the game at the bar and put that mess on the internet boom shakalaka
PS comcast sucks monkey dung
I have direct tv I pay extra for the NBA package I get every other game in the NBA but blazers all of witch are broadcasted on comcast It’s BS I’m fed up it goes back to the days of Blazer cable paul allen is sticking it to us fans big time!!