Matt Hutchings, President of Altitude Sports responds to fans questions on the streaming/direct to consumer options.

Streaming

Matt Hutchings, President of Altitude Sports responds to fans questions on the streaming/direct to consumer options.

• Unfortunately, today a model does not exist that can support a streaming/direct to consumer option. Ask yourself why large corporations like NBC/Comcast and AT&T/DIRECTV don’t offer their Regional Sports Networks directly to their consumers. The answer is, all Regional Sports Networks, Altitude included, must be very broadly distributed (i.e., on basic or expanded basic on cable or satellite) in order to have enough revenue to license and pay for the various team and league games they each carry and offer to their customers.  A direct to consumer offering would be very expensive to the consumer and likely would not raise sufficient revenue for Altitude and the other Regional Sports Networks to remain in business.  If this model did not exist, the Regional Sports Networks, including Altitude, would disappear as they would not have sufficient revenue to pay for the rights fees for the wide array of sports programming they provide to their subscribers. As a result, sports fans would not be able to watch their favorite local teams.
  
  
• There is not a Regional Sports Network in the country that provides a streaming/direct to consumer option. In fact, neither Comcast, which owns the NBC SportsNet Regional Sports Networks in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles Bay Area and Portland/Seattle, nor DIRECTV (AT&T), which owns AT&T SportsNet Regional Sports Networks in Colorado (which carries the Rockies), Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Houston and Pittsburgh, do not offer streaming direct to consumer options to their consumers.
  
  
• Altitude does provide AltitudeNOW a service that allows cable and satellite subscribers to watch Altitude via a mobile device. Unfortunately, this popular service has been blocked by Comcast, DIRECTV and DISH. Another tactic by the Big 3 that deprives sports fans