Altitude Sports Tuesday waived its local exclusivity rights to telecast Denver Nuggets and Denver Avalanche first-round playoff games, allowing fans without access to the network to watch national telecasts of the games.
While Altitude will still produce and air all Nuggets first-round playoff games, it will allow TNT or ESPN to also televise those same post-season games in the market to subscribers of MVPD’s such as Comcast and Dish who don’t have carriage deals with the sports network, Altitude president Matt Hutchings said. NBA first-round playoff games begin Aug. 17.
“Our fans have been ignored and dismissed by both Comcast and DISH Network continuing to blackout their hometown Network,” Hutchings said in a statement.
The same situation also applies to Avalanche NHL first round playoff games, which began this week. Attitude along with NBC Sports will provide coverage of the Avalanche-Arizona Coyotes series throughout the market.
“We have never wanted our fans to miss a minute of action during Nuggets and Avalanche playoff runs,” said Hutchings. “The relationships with the NBA and NHL allow the playoff runs for our teams to be watched by all of our fans.”
