Denver sports fans are facing a philosophical conundrum. If a game is played and no one watches, did it really happen?

Because of a TV-industry dispute, it is virtually impossible for anyone in Denver to watch the Denver Nuggets basketball team or hockey’s Colorado Avalanche. In general, broadcasters sometimes find themselves in disputes with one pay-TV company or another. In Denver, there is a blackout from all major providers at the same time, something unheard of in modern American sports history.

Sports bars are no consolation. Only one in town has access to the right channel, and that is only because it is hooked up to the arena where the teams play.

“It’s so frustrating, the only ways to watch are through pirated streams,” said Jay Lowry, a Dish subscriber who lives about three hours outside Denver. “I feel dirty doing that.”

The city’s sportscasters are still calling the games, even when hardly anyone is watching.

Mark Moser of Altitude, talking largely to himself. Photo: KSE Digital

“When you have a good show or a good line or good segment, you sit there saying, ‘Darn it, I wish we had the audience to hear, watch and enjoy that!’ ” said Vic Lombardi, who has been calling games at television channel Altitude Sports since 2016.


The problem traces to a dispute between Altitude, the exclusive broadcaster for Denver’s basketball and hockey teams, and the city’s major cable and satellite companies.

Altitude’s contracts with Comcast Corp., Dish Network Corp. and AT&T Inc.’s DirecTV all expired in August. All three distributors, which serve essentially all of Denver, are currently offering between 50% and 70% less to carry the channel this time around, said Matt Hutchings, Altitude’s president.

Altitude announcer Katy Winge, right, has been tweeting parts of the broadcast for fans who can’t watch. From the left are colleagues Vic Lombardi and Christopher Dempsey. Photo: Katy Winge

Comcast, Dish and DirecTV each say they have made offers they believe are fair to their customers.

In the interim, Katy Winge, a Nuggets reporter and analyst for Altitude, has been tweeting videos of the sportscasters announcing the game as well as quotes from the otherwise-unseen play-by-plays.

“Hello everyone @ChrisMarlowe just said bunny hop in the pea patch,” Ms. Winge tweeted last week as the Nuggets played the Phoenix Suns, referring to Altitude anchor Chris Marlowe and an expression used by sportscasters when a player is called for traveling. “He is truly in midseason form,” she added.


“I wouldn’t know,” a Twitter user said in response. “I have DirecTV.”

The Avalanche’s season kicked off a few weeks ago and the Nuggets’ season began Wednesday. The Nuggets are expected to be one of the best teams in the NBA and the Avalanche are considered contenders for the NHL’s Stanley Cup.

“We have a really good hockey club that’s already playing well,” said Mark Moser, one of Mr. Lombardi’s colleagues at Altitude. Mr. Moser spent 12 years announcing Avalanche games over the radio, and finally got his big break last season when he moved to TV.

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Streaming packages are no solution, given that games with local teams aren’t available live. Some games are broadcast nationally, but infrequently. In one consolation, Altitude struck a deal with local broadcast station KTVD to air the Nuggets’ Friday home opener. There is no word if a similar deal will be met for the Avalanche.


As the regular season approached, the dispute got testy.

Altitude recently published a video on social media that showed the teams’ mascots, Rocky the Mountain Lion and Bernie the St. Bernard, taking turns destroying a Dish-branded satellite dish with a sledgehammer.

The video appeared to be part advocacy campaign, part homage to the 1999 cult classic “Office Space,” in which a group of disgruntled office workers take an oft-malfunctioning printer to a remote field and smash it to pieces with a baseball bat.

Colorado Avalanche fan Jay Lowry with his dog, Max. Photo: Jay Lowry

The video has since been deleted. “While they’re spending time making funny videos, we’re spending time trying to get a fair deal for consumers,” a Dish spokesman said.


Mr. Hutchings called the video “a short flight on social media that ran its course.”

Altitude is part of the entertainment empire of Stan Kroenke, a billionaire developer who owns the Nuggets and Avalanche as well as the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Arsenal FC of the English Premier League.

The blackout is bad business for the city’s sports bars, which have lost access to their two highest-profile sources of weeknight sports entertainment.

Christina Carmazzi, a manager at Sloan’s Lake Tap & Burger in Denver, said the bar is currently airing a lot of baseball games. That will soon come to an end as the World Series started on Tuesday, featuring the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals, which play 1,000 miles and 1,600 miles, respectively, from Denver.

The city’s lonely provider of Nuggets and Avalanche games on TV is Brooklyn’s, a sports bar that struck a deal with Altitude. That is possible only because it is located across the street from the Pepsi Center, where both teams play, and is technically part of the sporting complex, which means it has the connections in place to get the Altitude signal.

A manager at Brooklyn’s said the current deal is on a week-to-week basis, and is “as good as it can be right now.” A week ago Friday, the feed stalled and fans had to wait for the bar manager to sort it out.

One Denver bar, Blake Street Tavern, took matters into its own hands and aired a pirated stream of the Avalanche game on Monday. Mr. Hutchings since said Altitude is exploring ways to offer Avalanche and Nuggets games at bars and restaurants legally.

Regional sports blackouts have become more frequent over the years as media consolidation, cord-cutting and increasingly expensive contracts with leagues have made both sports networks and TV distributors more likely to drive a hard bargain. About 60% of Los Angeles households remain unable to watch the Dodgers on TV. That dispute has been going on for six seasons.

Mr. Hutchings said despite continued attempts at negotiations, Altitude is growing “very frustrated with the lack of traction.”

Adam Seymour and his wife, Andrea Seymour, until recently lived in South Korea, where they could watch all the Nuggets’ games live thanks to the league’s streaming service, NBA League Pass.

Andrea and Adam Seymour at a Nuggets/Rockets game in February 2018. Photo: Seymour family

Then they relocated to Denver. “This was a huge part of my wife’s excitement to move back to Colorado,” said Mr. Seymour. To Ms. Seymour’s relief, the couple are now moving again, this time close to Philadelphia, which means she can resume watching the Nuggets.

Corrections & Amplifications

Stan Kroenke owns Arsenal FC. An earlier version of this article said he was a part owner. (Oct. 25, 2019)

Write to Lillian Rizzo at Lillian.Rizzo@wsj.com