Another NBA team is parting ways with the regional sports network model for its local media, but the impacts of this shift could be particularly far-reaching.
The Trail Blazers announced they are leaving Seattle-based Root Sports, with that departure coming a year before the end of the current contract. The team joins the Suns, Jazz, and Pelicans that have already made moves toward various combinations of over-the-air television and streaming to show their games locally. The Trail Blazers are reportedly considering similar structures with multiple suitors—not surprising given the team is highly popular in Portland, and does not share the city with teams from the NFL, NHL, or MLB.
“An exciting announcement on the future television home of Blazers basketball will be made soon,” the team said in a statement.
What About Root Sports?
The Trail Blazers’ split, while said to be amicable, could certainly represent the beginning of the end for Root Sports, owned by MLB’s Mariners. The other team previously shown on the RSN, the NHL’s Kraken, already announced a split in April to show their games on local over-the-air television and on Amazon.
With the Mariners now the sole major team aired on Root Sports, striking lucrative distribution deals will inevitably become much more difficult. Comcast, a major cable carrier in the Seattle area, previously shifted Root Sports to a premium-level tier, part of a broader strategy of how it is repositioning many RSNs on its systems.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, meanwhile, continues to pursue a large-scale reformation of that sport’s local media in a more league-centric model.
It’s additionally worth noting that the other three RSNs that formerly operated under the Root Sports name have each gone through major overhauls of some sort in the last year. SportsNet Pittsburgh is now owned and operated by Fenway Sports Group, parent of the NHL’s Penguins and the New England Sports Network, among other assets. AT&T SportNet Southwest is now the Space City Home Network and co-owned by the NBA’s Rockets and MLB’s Astros. And AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain shut down at the end of 2023.
Over at Diamond Sports Group …
Since the Trail Blazers’ situation involves Root Sports, the bankrupt Diamond Sports Group is not a direct party. But the Bally Sports parent is still aiming to complete reworked rights agreements with the NBA and NHL that were said last month to be close.
DSG still has rights to 14 NBA teams. But as the number of franchises opting to exit the RSN model altogether moves closer to critical mass, it bears watching whether any of the teams under the DSG umbrella makes a similar exit—something that could greatly alter the delicate league negotiations.
