Ben has the story here. Immediately, all KGW games will be carried on the team’s website and Miller, the Trail Blazers president, has promised that by the end of the calendar year all the Comcast games will be available online, too.

I hope he hasn’t underestimated how difficult it is to negotiate with Comcast. We’ve had a lot of broken promises in the past and it really is time to make these games available to a larger audience.

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We’ll be talking football tonight, I’m sure. And as always, there will be Trail Blazer chatter, too. Join us live at 6 o’clock on Comcast Sportsnet (37 on your cable tuner, I hear) for all the mayhem.

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Tonight is another one of those Trail Blazer games unavailable to me on my home television because it’s shown on Comcast Sports Net. Now let’s make this clear right away: I would love to have CSN. I’m going to be doing a very fun post, post-game show after some Blazer games this season on that network. Plus, I hear they carry Roller Derby — the old stuff with the Bay Area Bombers, Charlie O’Connell, Joanie Weston and hey, I grew up watching that stuff.

But I don’t have Comcast Sports Net available to me. At all. Where I live, I don’t have cable available to me. Period. And like some of those people in Seattle Ryan White wrote about today, I don’t have any options.

The entire area where I live is made up of satellite customers — either Directv or Dish. It’s our only option. And like those fans in Seattle who are blacked out on Portland games simply because they are now considered the Blazers’ “territory,” I think it’s unfair we are prohibited from watching Portland games.

It’s one thing if you’re just stubbornly refusing to get cable. I mean, come on — what’s the point of having television if you don’t have at least some of the many programming options out there? But in this case — and in the situation so many people around the state of Oregon are in — there is no cable option of being able to watch Blazer games.

See, what really pecks me off is that I pay for the NBA League Pass service, too. I’ve purchased it every season since its inception. Yet, Blazer games are STILL blacked out, because the games are being “telecast” locally. And this is where the frustrating part comes in — Nobody seems to understand that even though the games are shown in Portland, a great many of us have NO CHANCE to see them. But when you pay the extra dough for the League Pass, they should be. And as near as I can tell, that’s not Comcast’s fault. It’s not the Blazers’ fault. It’s the fault of a league blackout policy that’s outdated.

That’s why I believe that the league needs to revamp that blackout policy. What harm would it do to tweak it a little so that people who can prove they are not serviced by a cable company that carries CSN, can receive the games by NBA League Pass? All they would have to do is provide proof from a cable company in the manner of a form letter saying, “We don’t provide service in that area.” The league is getting a significant amount of money from me each season for the package of games, yet the games I want to see the most aren’t available.

Isn’t it the goal of the league and its teams to allow as many people as possible to receive the games? Isn’t that what their advertisers want? And in this specific instance, by allowing fans to see these games, it doesn’t hurt the cable companies or the satellite companies.

Please, NBA — could someone take the time to look at this situation? If you cannot receive the games any other way but League Pass, and pay for League Pass, what’s the harm in allowing you to receive the games?

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This deal went down yesterday:

 
COMCAST SPORTSNET NORTHWEST LAUNCHES ON CANBY TELCOM DIGITAL TV

Regional Sports Leader to Launch September 29th on Canby Telcom Digital TV Channel 33

Portland, OR (September 26, 2008) – Comcast SportsNet Northwest, home of the region’s most comprehensive local sports coverage, and Canby Telcom today announced that Comcast SportsNet Northwest will launch on Canby Telcom’s Digital Television channel 33 on September 29th, in time for the start of the 2008-2009 Trail Blazers season.

“We welcome Canby Telcom as a distribution partner and look forward to serving their customers with our local mix of insider sports coverage and analysis, including the Blazers, college sports and more,” said Comcast Executive Vice President of Sports Programming David Manougian.

“As a cooperative it is important to listen to our members request for additional products, services and in this case television programming,” said Keith Galitz, president and general manager of Canby Telcom. We are very excited to have the opportunity to provide Comcast SportsNet Northwest and the Portland Trail Blazers to our community.

Canby Telcom provides telecommunications and entertainment services to more than 8,000 customers over an 84 square mile foot print in the northern Willamette Valley of Oregon. The 102 year old cooperative has 68 employees and 10,000 telephone access lines. Canby Digital Television service has more than 200 channels including 36 HD channels. An Interactive Program Guide, Video on Demand, Pay-per-View, and Caller ID on TV are a few of the many features available with the service.

So exciting to hear they’ve been able to forge a deal with a company that has 8,000 subscribers. Now — with this big-time agreement out of the way — perhaps the decks will be cleared to make a pact with satellite and cable companies that could deliver hundreds of thousands of viewers.
I cannot believe this whole thing is still going on. Are we going to have to go through another season without this deal getting done?

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