How badly does this stink for Avalanche fans?
All they want to do is watch MacK, Moose and Landy chase their championship dreams. “We expect to make the playoffs, make a run and try to win the Stanley Cup,” Avs general manager Joe Sakic said Wednesday.
Wouldn’t that be cool to see? But not so fast. Colorado hockey devotees are caught in the middle of a knockdown, drag-out fight between billionaires that will make watching the Avalanche on television impossible for most of them.
While companies founded by Stan Kroenke (net worth $9.7 billion) and Charlie Ergen (net worth $10.2 billion) squabble over what amounts to chump change for them, local fans are getting a face wash with a smelly glove, their ability to see games on television blocked, as Altitude Sports’ contractual dispute rages on with distributors Comcast, Dish Network and DirecTV.
“Hey, we’re the little guys here,” Kroenke told me, when I asked the creator of a worldwide sports empire that stretches from the Denver to London to describe his regional sports network’s position in a contractual impasse that effectively blacks out TV coverage for the vast majority of Avs fans.
In a landscape shifting abruptly under the feet of sports and broadcast moguls with the same disruptive, technological advances that have wreaked havoc on the news and music industries, what’s a fan to do?
“Get your (butt) to the arena,” suggested Nuggets coach Michael Malone, whose on-the-rise team is also a cornerstone of Altitude programming.
Well, if Malone would be so kind to donate $703.20 to cover the cost of four tickets in Section 106 for the Oct. 25 home-opener against Phoenix, I will find him four Nuggets die-hards to scream their support for center Nikola Jokic all night long.
But I’m afraid there can be no quick resolution of this TV dispute until cooler heads prevail. While Altitude TV is distributing a video of Rocky and Bernie, mascots for the local NBA and NHL franchises, pulverizing a satellite dish with a sledgehammer, it might be far more productive for executives on both sides to gather in a room with a pot of coffee and not leave until they pound out terms of new contracts.
That would be the grown-up thing to do.
In this fight, Comcast, Dish and DirecTV do seem to have the upper hand, because Altitude finds itself in the bind of needing widespread distribution of games to fans looking for something more satisfying to watch than the winless Broncos. In retrospect, allowing contracts to expire with the big three TV providers at the same time was a serious business mistake.
But I also know this about Kroenke: He’s a stubbornly competitive and shrewd businessman.
In the past, we have seen Kroenke hold out for fair trade value from the New York Knicks, despite Carmelo Anthony putting the Nuggets in what appeared to be a no-win situation in 2010 by demanding to be moved out of Denver. When the NFL decided it was finally time to re-enter the Los Angeles market in 2016, Kroenke found a way to convince fellow owners he was the right man for the job.
“We’re not inclined to quit and go home,” Kroenke said.
Kroenke is a member of the NFL’s powerful broadcast committee. While the folks at Altitude might indeed be little guys in the sports television world, does DirecTV, whose eight-year, $12 billion deal for NFL Sunday Ticket expires after the 2021 season, really want to pick a fight with Kroenke over the Avs and Nuggets?
While Kroenke is on a first-name basis with Ergen, the billionaire who serves as Dish Network’s chairman, where is the average Joe who merely wants to watch Nathan MacKinnon score a sweet goal off a pass from Cale Makar on television from a spot on the sofa supposed to take his beef?
While sitting in the media lounge of the Pepsi Center at mid-day Monday, I bumped into Kroenke, who stopped by to get his vision checked at a temporary ophthalmology clinic set up to test the eyesight of Nuggets players reporting to training camp.
On the table in front of me was my laptop, open to a live chat with Denver Post readers, one of whom wanted to know if the Altitude TV dispute would be resolved in time to watch the Avalanche’s home-opener on Thursday night.
So I asked Kroenke: “What should I tell fans that want to see hockey on television?”
Without a moment of hesitation, Kroenke suggested Avalanche fans should contact representatives of Comcast, DirecTV and Dish, then firmly declare: “This is (balderdash.) Because it is (balderdash).”
It would be foolish to underestimate Kroenke’s ability to win this fight.
But you know the thing about balderdash?
It always rolls downhill.
And that stinks for Avalanche fans.
