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When the two top teams in the NBA squared off in Portland last Friday, fans might have wandered into a neighborhood sports bar thinking they could catch the sold-out Blazers-Jazz showdown on the tube.

If so they were out of luck. There's not a sports bar in Portland--outside the Rose Quarter--that can get Blazervision, the team's pay-per-view system for showing home games.

The Blazers are one of the last teams to restrict broadcasts of home games. But that's about to change.

Harry Hutt, vice-president for the Blazers, says that Blazervision will probably go the way of hoopsters in low-top sneakers, tight shorts and giant Afros. "Pay-per-view is passé in most cities," he concedes.

Hutt says the Blazers will reveal their broadcasting plans by season's end. The folks at cable's Fox Sports Network, which has come to dominate regional NBA broadcasts in the last three years, hope it includes them.

A change will be welcome news to many fans, who have long been frustrated by the team's TV coverage. Although most away games are televised on KGW-TV, home games have been available only on Blazervision, which is pricy.

Blazervision viewers currently have three options. For this year's shortened season, they can buy a 25-game package for $150; they can order individual games for $9.95 each (most Portland customers have to pay an additional $3.50 per month for a descrambling device); or they can troop down to the Rose Quarter, where just one restaurant, Cucina Cucina, carries Blazervision.

In an era of cable sports
networks, the Blazers have held on to their pay-per-view system, in part because they could get away with it. Not that long ago, the Blazers were so popular that they racked up 812 consecutive sell-outs at the old 12,000-seat Memorial Coliseum. Their fans were so faithful that the team could sell out big-screen telecasts of games at the old Paramount and Fox theaters downtown.

When the new 21,538-seat Rose Garden opened in 1995, the Blazers stuck with pay-per-view. They thought making home games easily available on TV might hurt ticket sales. In addition, they believed they could help the Rose Quarter's fledgling restaurants by allowing them--but no other bars--to sign up for Blazervision.

The plan didn't work. The Blazers haven't won a playoff series since they left the Coliseum, and the players' off-court behavior has alienated fans. It's a far cry from the days when Larry, Magic and Michael came to Portland to battle Clyde, Buck and Terry. Not surprisingly, the team has been unable to consistently sell out the Rose Garden.

So Blazers owner Paul Allen is looking to make his team more accessible and revive what was once known as Blazermania. That's where Fox comes in.

"We believe sports are tribal," says Fox spokeswoman Erin Harvego. "Our goal is to bring home teams to home fans." That's something that ESPN, with its national-programming strategy, can't always do. So Fox has created a series of regional networks, such as Fox Sports Northwest, which are linked to a national network.

The Fox Sports Network now broadcasts games for 26 of the 28 NBA teams, and it would love to make pay-per-view relics the Blazers No. 27. "Fox penetrates 98 percent of the cable households in Oregon," says Harvego. "We're interested, and we've talked to the Blazers. I can't stress enough how much we'd like them."

For fans, the price difference between Blazervision and Fox Sports is not a huge factor. They can currently get Blazervision games for about $6 or $10, depending on how they buy them. If Fox got the Blazers, fans could catch the games with extended basic cable, which is now $30.68 and includes an additional 42 channels. Sports bars with extended cable would have access to the games, too.

Some longtime fans like Pudgy Hunt, owner of the East Bank Saloon, think it would be smart for Allen to dump Blazervision.

"They would not sell it to us at any price," says Hunt. "I don't think it was a good move from a public-relations standpoint. We have customers who can't afford tickets or won't--or can't--buy pay-per-view at home."

Now his regular customers are warming up a bit to the conference-leading Blazers. Hunt believes giving fans a taste of Blazers home games might be just what's needed to bring back embittered fans, including his wife, who has been boycotting the team because of the players' arrogance and the NBA lock-out.

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Willamette Week | originally published March 17, 1999