Trail Blazers see huge viewership increase with move off Root Sports

With the regional sports network business in free fall, many franchises are choosing to jump ship.

The Portland Trail Blazers are one of those teams. This season, the franchise decided to ditch its old deal with Root Sports Northwest, which reached just 20% of fans in the Portland market, in favor of striking deals with local over-the-air affiliates that fans can watch for free with an antenna.

And according to a report by Tom Friend in Sports Business Journal, that strategy has paid off, at least from a viewership perspective.

Per Friend, the Trail Blazers have increased viewership by 69% year-over-year with its new strategy. But the increased reach has come at a price. The Trail Blazers have also taken approximately a $20 to $25 million haircut in annual media rights fees by moving its games outside of the pay TV ecosystem.

This year’s increase is partly a function of Portland’s steep decline last year in which the team saw a nearly 50% drop in viewership with Root. “Listen, we’re thrilled we’ve gone to first in the league,” Trail Blazers president Dewayne Hankins told SBJ. “But I can do the math. When you dropped the way we did last year, sometimes you really have nowhere to go but up.”

Hankins likely knows that this type of viewership growth is far from a guarantee, even with the team’s newfound reach. Just across the border in Utah, the Jazz have seen a 44% decline in viewership this year during the team’s second season deploying its over-the-air strategy. The Jazz have also reportedly lost about 50% of its media revenue from the switch.

It all makes for a complex cost-benefit analysis for teams, but the Trail Blazers think the move is a positive despite the lost revenue.

Fans are watching more games, which Hankins believes will lead to increases in other areas like ticket and merchandise sales. And as Friend mentions, teams choosing to go this route will still have the NBA’s new national media rights deals kick in next year, which should help smooth over any local revenue losses.