Now let me get this straight. The Portland Trail Blazers announced a new regional sports network, Comcast SportsNet Northwest, the day before it backed into the first pick in the 2007 NBA draft? Did Blazer management know something about those magic ping pong balls that the rest of the world didn’t?
Give credit to the Blazers for organizing this regional network before franchise-changing Greg Oden fell into their laps. The station provides much-needed consistency to basketball coverage of a team whose seeds have already shown signs of sprouting into a champion at the Rose Garden.
Unfortunately, the extraordinary promotional boost afforded by the college game’s premier prospect will have to wait until next year. Two and a half months after the Blazers made Oden the first pick, the 7-foot stud from Ohio State underwent exploratory knee surgery that ended his rookie campaign before it started.
Second-year starters Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge and a host of other 20-somethings (the entire roster except 31-year-old Raef Lafrentz) showed Blazer management enough promise to showcase their talents regionally on a consistent basis. And executives have been rewarded with a 3-3 start, including a 91-82 win Saturday over the Dallas Mavericks, owners of the league’s best record a season ago.
After following the channel’s content for a number of weeks, it’s clear that the Blazers don’t just headline the programming, they are the programming. Between at least 55 regular season games and expanded pre-game and post-game analysis, Blazer fans can be there for every step of their team’s projected resurgence onto the NBA map.
"We are thrilled to partner with Comcast SportsNet and feel that sports fans in Portland and throughout the Northwest are going to be the true winners," said Trail Blazers Executive Vice President of Business Operations Mike Golub.
He’s right. Blazer fans, who haven’t witnessed a winning season since the end of the franchise’s glory days in 2003, win – and they win big.
But the organization wins on hype alone. Fans are desperate for a winner and team officials know it. The Blazers hired Comcast executive vice president of sports programming and Golf Channel CEO Dave Manougian to oversee the launch. With an unprecedented amount of Blazer games and related programming, including a 200% increase in HDTV, Manougian and his staff have plenty to work with.
And that’s not including Oden - yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment