Is there anything worse than billionaires crying victim?
Local sports fans are probably well aware that it’s pretty hard to watch Nuggets and Avalanche games these days. The broadcaster, Altitude, and the area’s three major providers, Dish, DirecTV and Comcast, failed to come to a carriage agreement prior to the season openers. Altitude has since reached an agreement with DirecTV, but it’s radio silence on the other two.
For months now, Altitude has been running a faux victimhood PR campaign. First, its tagline: “Don’t block my Avs.” No one is “blocking” anything. An agreement was not reached, and so a network, Altitude, is not available.
Second, it has crafted a David vs. Goliath narrative. Stan Kroenke’s net worth is not the same as a corporation’s like Comcast, but the sports mogul’s net worth is valued by Forbes at around $6 billion. After all, he owns KSE entertainment.
I don’t know the average Avalanche or Nuggets fan’s net worth, but just maybe it’s a tad short of ten figures. Yet, Altitude has attempted to make this the “people’s” fight. Puhleeeze.
Altitude had two roads open to it: Keep insinuating collusion among the three providers, or negotiate a deal. Up until Monday, it seemed Altitude was pursuing a third path: consistently and publicly bad mouth the carriers and ask fans to take up the sword. At the same time, Xfinity advertising continued to run at the KSE-owned Pepsi Center. Go figure.
Apparently that didn’t work, because on Monday Altitude did what it should have done months ago if it truly believes its claims of collusion: It filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Comcast. This doesn’t bode well for fans, but contrary to Altitude’s attempts to manipulate the narrative, it was the fans, not Altitude, who have been the victims in all this.
Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com
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