Jackson Stearns is frustrated. Not by the Nuggets. A lifelong fan, the 35-year-old from the Platt Park neighborhood in Denver has reveled in the team’s march to the NBA Finals. But over the past four years, as Nikola Jokić has blossomed into a two-time MVP and the Nuggets have emerged as a perennial contender, a bitter fight between the team and a leading broadcasting distributor has made it increasingly difficult for fans like Stearns to watch them.
Since 2019, Altitude, the Kroenke family-owned network that airs games for the Kroenke-owned Nuggets, and Avalanche, has been locked in a carriage dispute with Comcast, Colorado’s largest cable provider. The result has been catastrophic television viewership. Last season, the Nuggets finished last in local household ratings and viewership, per Nielsen Media Research, which tracks ratings for the 29 U.S.-based NBA teams. This season, the team saw its ratings increase by 200%, per league data. All that did was bump Denver to 23rd in ratings and 27th in household viewership.
Addressing reporters before Thursday’s Game 1 against the Heat, NBA commissioner Adam Silver called the situation “a problem we have to fix.” He noted that his brother, Owen, lives in Boulder. “I hear from his family all the time,” Silver said. He called it “a commercial dispute,” and added, “there hasn’t been a simple resolution to it.”
