Portland Trail Blazers Ink Four-Year Rights Extension with CSN Northwest

CSN Northwest has inked a four-year extension to continue as the local rightsholder for Portland Trail Blazers game broadcasts. Beginning with the new 2017-18 extension, CSNNW (part of NBC Sports Group) will become the exclusive media partner for all regional Trail Blazers games. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. While the move comes as a surprise to many due to CSN Northwest’s inability to secure carriage with satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network, Trail Blazers President & CEO Chris McGowan says CSN Northwest provided the widest possible distribution for the team’s games. 

“After thorough negotiations with several other potential partners, it became apparent that by building on our existing relationship with CSN Northwest, we have the best opportunity to increase distribution for Trail Blazers games and other programming in our marketplace,” said McGowan. “With the addition of David Preschlack at NBC Sports Group and his background in distribution, we’re very motivated to collaborate on ways to bring even greater access to our fans.”

“We’re excited to extend our relationship with the Portland Trail Blazers beyond the 2016-17 season and look forward to building on the growth in distribution we have achieved over the last few years,” said Preschlack, President of NBC Sports Regional Networks. “We’re also excited to work with the team to determine new ways to reach fans in the Portland area.”

In recent years, CSN Northwest has inked new carriage agreements with Charter Communications, CenturyLink Prism TV, and most recently SONY Vue, which is accessible on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Amazon Fire TV, Google Chromecast and Roku. These distributors expanded CSN Northwest’s longstanding carriage on XFINITY, Frontier, and Wave.

“CSN is committed to super-serving Portland’s passionate fans and thrilled that this new partnership features more Trail Blazers games on CSN than ever before,” said Larry Eldridge, GM of CSN Northwest.

In addition to game broadcasts, the Trail Blazers-CSNNW partnership will continue producing a comprehensive mix of shoulder programming, including Trail Blazers Courtside, pregame shows, halftime updates and postgame wrap-ups. There are also plans to refresh studio sets, on-air graphics and other production elements.

For the upcoming 2016-17 season, Trail Blazers regional game broadcasts will continue to be shared between CSNNW and local NBC affiliate KGW Channel 8. Radio broadcasts of Trail Blazers games will still be found on flagship Rip City Radio AM-620 and on 20 additional stations regionally on the Trail Blazers Radio Network.