After five years of carriage disputes, half-baked apps and surprise blackouts, Denver Nuggets fans are out of patience

A season ticket holder from Littleton right behind the opposing bench, a former arena usher from Westminster who worked simply to be able to go to games, a lifelong fan from Thornton, a grandma from Fort Collins, all Denver Nuggets fans, dedicated to watching and rooting for their team since as early as they can remember. All dumbfounded, frustrated and frankly fed-up with what they describe as constant hoops (no pun intended) to jump through, rising costs and lack of communication simply to watch their favorite team and they are certainly not alone.

If you’ve been trying to watch the Nuggets over the past five years you know exactly what I’m talking about. At the end of Summer in 2019 XFinity, the largest cable television provider and third largest television provider of any type in Colorado, elected to not renew their contract with Altitude TV, effectively taking the Nuggets off the air for over a million Coloradoans. Almost simultaneously Dish Network, the second largest television provider in Colorado, also elected to not renew their contract with Altitude TV bringing the estimated total television customers in Colorado who are unable to view the Nuggets on their selected television provider to over 3.8 million. Five years later and no resolution has been reached. According to Altitude’s FAQ page: “Altitude Sports is continuing to seek a resolution on carriage deals with both Comcast and DISH Network.” Meanwhile the army of Xfinity support reps has always maintained that they want Altitude as an offering, but only at a price that, by their determination, is “reasonable.”

This is of course old news. After five years, Comcast and Dish customers have found other ways, some legal and some not, to view their favorite team. To Altitude’s credit, they have sought alternative means to provide their fans with viewing options. First and foremost, they reached an agreement with DirecTV in 2019 to keep Altitude available on the largest television provider in the state. They also added the channel to FuboTV, a primarily sports focused streaming service, and with their agreement with DirecTV also made Altitude available through their streaming service, DirecTV Stream. Finally, Altitude made agreements with local TV stations like My20 KTVD and Channel 9 KUSA to broadcast 20 Nuggets games (roughly 25% of the season) this year, making them available to the public via a TV Antenna. Lastly, this season Altitude rolled out their own standalone streaming service, Altitude+.

Multiple fans, while appreciative of Altitude giving them some options, expressed dismay to me at the cost of these services. FuboTV, like pretty much all television services, offers a low introductory price to watch the Nuggets but of course it doesn’t last. You can sign up for free and watch for free for a week, then the price goes to $80 a month before taxes and fees…and that’s just for one month, in month two the price jumps to $100, again before taxes and fees. Add it all up and a Nuggets fan is paying around $115 a month just to watch their team. Oh by the way, Fubo doesn’t carry TNT so you won’t get those games. As a sports focused streaming option with limited offerings outside of that, Fubo becomes an expensive luxury most are not able or willing to afford. DirecTV stream has a more diverse channel offering, but it’ll also cost you more ($115/month before taxes and fees after a three month introductory period). Unfortunately, as many streaming subscribers found out, more money doesn’t necessarily mean more access to games

Sometimes the best intentions and plans aren’t met with the same execution and that’s exactly what happened over the past couple months. From an outside perspective (Denver Stiffs did reach out to Altitude TV for comment but we did not receive any response by time of publishing) the rolling out of both Altitude+ and the 20 games on local TV appear bungled at best. Altitude+, which Altitude announced on September 26th, was not available when the NHL season started. Like the Nuggets, the broadcast rights for the Colorado Avalanche belong to Altitude. There was no indication in the original press release that Altitude+ would not be available by the start of the Avs season, rather the release simply noted the service would be available “in October.” On October 8th, Altitude stated the service was “aiming to launch later this month.” Come the season opener on Altitude for the Avs on October 12th (the actual season opener was on national TV and not carried by Altitude) and it was time for the local broadcaster to face the music. The app was still not ready and less than twelve hours before puck drop Avs faithful was given the news.

Eleven days later on October 23rd Altitude finally announced the Altitude+ service was ready but the term ready appears to have been used loosely. One fan described the Altitude+ app to me as “a lousy app, like 2000s technology.” Perusing the reviews on the app store and it appears this fan is not alone. The app is currently rated 3.6 stars out of 5 on the Apple app store with reviews stating things like “I feel like a beta tester” or “it’s wild that after so many years of waiting for this service this is the app they give us.” The written reviews on the Apple app store are overwhelmingly negative with users citing functionality issues, inability to watch full screen, inability to record and a general lack of features as the primary reason for their discontent, particularly at a $20 a month price point.

All was not lost though, fans still had the opportunity to view the Nuggets for 20 games this season on local television…or so they thought. The first Nuggets game broadcast on My20 this season was on October 29th against the Brooklyn Nets. The Nuggets played the day before against the Toronto Raptors and some users on Fubo (including me) were blacked out to begin the game. The advice from Altitude TV on their Twitter account that night was essentially to shell out another $20 for Altitude+. The issue got fixed but in the end it was simply a harbinger of things to come. On the 29th, thousands of Nuggets fans who did things the right way and didn’t find an illegal stream that are all too easy to find, who elected to pay over $100 a month for a streaming service that Altitude themselves had spent years promoting, turned on the television and discovered they were blacked out. There was no communication directly from Altitude prior to tip-off that the game would be blacked out on Fubo TV and DirecTV Stream. The immediate response on Twitter? Buy an antenna. That’s all well and good but 1) customers are already paying top dollar to watch the team from the comfort of their homes 2) the range of the blackout far exceeded the range of a TV antenna.

This appeared to be a bridge too far for many. The outrage was palpable. A season ticket holder told me it was the straw that broke the camel’s back of their frustration after watching ticket prices increase and, as they describe it, being forced into a prepaid food concessions program where service has been lacking. Those are of course Nuggets and Ball Arena issues, not Altitude TV, but with everything under the Kroenke Sports & Entertainment umbrella it’s easy to see how it all gets lumped into one big ball of frustration. Most fans described their frustration to me coming from the lack of communication. Many felt blindsided when they saw the game was blacked out, others felt like they weren’t given enough time to go out and get an antenna and didn’t like the idea of spending even more money for television equipment that really would only serve the purpose to watch a handful of Nuggets games. Still others, like that grandma in Fort Collins, who are out of range to be able to view My20 via an antenna were simply left with one option: don’t watch.

The blackout issue stems from a company called Tegna who is the media company that owns both KTVD and KUSA. It appears there were not agreements in place between Fubo, DirecTV and Tegna when the Nuggets game aired on October 29th and thus the reason for the blackouts. Altitude is a third party to these negotiations and left powerless to control what happens but it’s clear they are doing what they can. Communication on social media is coming in timely fashion now, including from KSE’s president of team and media operations Kevin Demoff. Since the 29th Altitude has moved quickly to get the Altitude+ app available on multiple streaming platforms like Android TV, Apple TV and Amazon Fire. Tegna reached an agreement with Fubo so in theory no more games will be blacked out on that service. The elephant in the room though is DirecTV stream which is one of, if not, the most popular streaming services to regularly view Nuggets games. Demoff stated on October 31st that they are hopeful an agreement between Tegna and DirecTV will be reached but until that time Altitude+ would be made available for free to anyone who is already subscribing to a service that has Altitude. Of course, the statement was qualified with that it should happen shortly, indicating such a measure has yet to take place and even after it happens, subscribers to DirecTV Stream paying in excess of $115 a month are not likely to be pleased with a solution that requires them to use a downgraded service with less functionality.

And that’s just the issue isn’t it? If Altitude told you today that you’d able to watch a game on your television service would you believe them? I know I wouldn’t. One fan told me “we thought we were finally able to watch games and now it’s questionable again…I can’t figure out why the owners would want their fans to have such a hard time trying to watch the home team.” After 5 years of carriage disputes, an app that took years to develop and still came out half-baked, and a blackout debacle that was communicated as poorly as possible, the fans are simply out of rope to give. Add in that other franchises both local (Colorado Rockies) and in the NBA (Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz) have made their broadcasts available through better developed streaming services that carry standard features like full screen viewing and DVR capability and, whether an excuse or legitimate, the reasons for the clunky roll out for Altitude+ fall upon deaf ears.

Will the frustration end soon? Impossible to say. As of now it appears the only way to watch all 82 games via one service is with a good old fashioned DirecTV dish. Everyone is hopeful that Tegna and DirecTV come to an agreement for DirecTV Stream. Everyone is hopeful that the Altitude+ service will increase it’s functionality. Still many are hopeful that Altitude will reach an agreement with Xfinity and Dish Network but given the way the past five years have gone it’s highly unlikely anyone is holding their breath. All of this is also part of a much larger issue with regional sports broadcasts. The Nuggets and Avalanche are certainly not alone as professional sports franchises mired in carriage disputes and navigating the relatively unknown waters of developing their own streaming service but frankly, the fans don’t care. Billionaires arguing with billionaires while the actual supporters of the teams are left by the wayside, as one fan put it to me. But hey, look on the bright side Nuggets fans, at least we got that in-arena studio set that no one asked for.