Great. If you REALLY want to thank (and grow) your fanbase please sue Comcrap for breach of contract and put all Blazers games on free TV next season. Comcrap has had two years to "negotiate" with the satellite providers and hasn't budged one bit. The Blazers GAVE them a monolopy and they are intent on keeping that monoploy to force Blazer fans to dump their satellite providers in favor of Camcrap's higher prices and crappier service. Time to break up the monopoly and make ALL Blazer games available to ALL Blazer fans. Things are going great for the team right now, Rip City is back. The die hard fans never left, the casual fans are coming back, the RG is going to sell out every game this season. Putting the games on free TV will only further cement the relationship between the team and the fans and help drive merchandise sales through the roof. Everybody wins! Well, except Comcrap. Thye lose the monoploy they should never have been given in the first place. BNM
You say "monopoly" like it's a bad thing. Comcast paid a lot of money for that monopoly/exclusive license and now you want the Blazers to sue them for that? I would hope that the Blazers would have better things to do and that we could use the courts for something a bit more important. Ed O.
I agree with B-N-M. One of the worst things ever done by the Blazers was putting their games on Comcast. There are a lot of people who have Dish or Direct TV and other cable around the region and most of them have been shut out unless their service paid the outrageous price gouge by Comcast and see their rates raised. Without question, the Blazers have lost many fans and are limited in gaining new ones.
If I were you guys, I'd cancel that extended service right now...especially if you only subscribed to that to get the Blazer games.
Actually, they did NOT pay for monopoly rights - they agreed to offer the CSN channel to other providers at "reasonable" rates. Of course, "reasonable" is open to interpretation - which is wherethe courts come in. And yes, when millions of dollars are at stake and thousands of people are impacted, I think that's an appropriate use of our civil court system. It's not like this is a criminal case that would be tying up resources that would be used to prosecute murders, rapists and other felons. BNM
That is true. I can't imagine that the Blazers would sue to get that challenged... it would cost them court fees and a significant bidder next time the rights are up for bid. Exclusive licenses (like it appears Comcast paid for) create monopoly power. That is, as I understand it, sort of the definition of why anyone wants an exclusive license. Ed O.
If the Blazers had took care of the most of their fans in the first place they wouldn't need to waste their court time, if they do consider it a waste of time as you do, now. But I am very happy we are going to be able to watch the playoff games without having to have Comcast.
I would say the Blazer fan base is stronger and larger than it has been over 15 years. They probably lose some fringe fans because of this, but very very few die-hards. I consider myself a die-hard who does not like Comcast and was locked in a contract with Dish. To me, the decision to break the contract and get Comcast until the issue was resolved was an easy one. I don't like paying $15 more a month for a inferior product, but when the other option is missing out on one of the building block seasons to our potentially dominate run over the next 5-10 years, it's a no brainer. I still feel horrible for the people who can't get Comcast, VIOS, Charter, and live inside an area where you can't watch the games on league pass. Everyone else has a option to watch the Blazers and just because it wasn't made easy to them doesn't mean that the organization is totally in the wrong. Remember the days of BlazerVision?
I didn't say anything about the fan base or them losing fans because of this. They are playing the best ball they have in a long time so of course their fan base is going to be a lot higher now. It's just a pity they didn't take care of more fans because I think this was avoidable and could be fix if they really wanted to. Lot of fans that supported them through the bad times are now seeing less Blazers games because of this. So I think they'd would have gave a bit more thought to that fact.
