Altitude Sports and Entertainment (usually referred to as simply Altitude) is an American regional sports cable and

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

television channel A television channel is a terrestrial frequency or virtual number over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the terrestrial or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, with ...

owned by Stan Kroenke's Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. The channel, which serves the

Rocky Mountain The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

region of the United States (specifically the

Denver metropolitan area Denver is the central city of a conurbation region in the U.S. state of Colorado. The conurbation includes one continuous region consisting of the six central counties of Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson. The Denver r ...

), features a mix of professional, collegiate, and high school sporting events as well as some entertainment-based programming. Launched on September 4, 2004, Altitude is headquartered in the Denver suburb of

Centennial {{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation) A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years. Notable events Notable centennial events at a ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

. Altitude also operates Altitude 2, a secondary overflow channel that is used in the event of scheduling conflicts with games simultaneously set to air on the main Altitude channel.

History

Altitude Sports and Entertainment was launched on September 4, 2004. The channel was launched as a team-owned competitor to FSN Rocky Mountain (now known as

AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain is an American regional sports network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit as part of the AT&T SportsNet brand of networks, and is an affiliate of Bally Sports. Headquartered in Denver, Colorad ...

). It became the official broadcaster for both of Kroenke's teams on launch. Altitude agreed to carry some games from the first season of the

Fall Experimental Football League The Fall Experimental Football League (FXFL) was a professional football minor league that played two seasons in 2014 and 2015. This league's stated goal was to become a professional feeder-system for the National Football League (NFL). The lea ...

in October and November 2014.

Programming

The channel holds broadcast rights to the four Denver-based professional sports teams that are owned by Kroenke – the NBA's

Denver Nuggets The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team was founded as the D ...

, the NHL's

Colorado Avalanche The Colorado Avalanche (colloquially known as the Avs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (N ...

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Cana ...

Colorado Rapids The Colorado Rapids are an American professional soccer club based in the Denver metropolitan area. The Rapids compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference. Founded in 1995, as part of the Anschutz Corporation, lat ...

, and the

National Lacrosse League The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is a men's professional box lacrosse league in North America. The league is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The NLL currently has fifteen teams: ten in the United Stat ...

Colorado Mammoth The Colorado Mammoth are a box lacrosse team playing in the National Lacrosse League. The Mammoth have played at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado, since the 2003 season. They are owned by Stan Kroenke, who is also the owner of the Colorado Avalan ...

. Altitude features in-depth coverage of the four teams, including holding broadcast rights to the majority of Avalanche, Rapids and Nuggets games. The channel's logo bug changes colors depending on the team being broadcast (powder blue and gold for the Nuggets, burgundy and dark blue for the Avalanche, maroon and black for the Mammoth and burgundy and sky blue for the Rapids). Altitude also holds television rights to

Major League Lacrosse Major League Lacrosse (MLL) was a men's field lacrosse league in the United States. The league's inaugural season was in 2001. Teams played anywhere from ten to 16 games in a summertime regular season. This was followed by a four-team playoff ...

Denver Outlaws The Denver Outlaws were a Major League Lacrosse professional men's field lacrosse team based in Denver, Colorado, United States. They began playing in the MLL in 2006 as an expansion team. Since joining the league, the Outlaws have played in the ...

and the AHL's Colorado Eagles (an affiliate of the Avalanche). Altitude also broadcasts live college athletics from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. They also simulcast select college football games from Montana, Montana State, New Mexico State and the

Southland Conference The Southland Conference, abbreviated as SLC, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the South Central United States (specifically Texas and Louisiana). It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it ...

. The channel previously broadcast

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Texas. Due to most of t ...

Big East Conference The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and ...

, and

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

games from

ESPN+ ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The c ...

. It also airs entertainment programming including live theatrical productions and

concert A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band. Concerts are held in a wide var ...

s, as well as a

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simul ...

of veteran

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other tit ...

Irv Brown Irv Brown (March 30, 1935 – February 3, 2019) was an American sportscaster, and basketball and baseball player, coach, executive, and official. Early life Brown earned seven letters at North High School in Denver, where he starred in footbal ...

's weekdaily radio program. Former

Colorado governor The governor of Colorado is the head of government of the U.S. state of Colorado. The governor is the head of the executive branch of Colorado's state government and is charged with enforcing state laws. The governor has the power to either appr ...

Bill Owens hosted a

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Sh ...

on the network during the final two years of his administration. As the team is principally owned by Kroenke, Altitude serves as production partner for the

Los Angeles Rams The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC Wes ...

' NFL preseason games. On August 10, 2022, Altitude signed a two-year agreement with the Air Force Academy to air

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football in the United States, American football rules first gained populari ...

, men's and women's

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

and

college ice hockey College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America. In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the g ...

events hosted by the Academy.

Broadcast regions

Altitude covers a ten-state area. Due to restrictions imposed by the NBA and NHL, Avalanche and Nuggets games are not available in all areas. To comply with these restrictions, Altitude divides its broadcast area into eight zones.

Distribution

On August 28, 2019, Altitude was dropped by

Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling ...

. Three days later, the channel was dropped by

Comcast Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...

and

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

. All three providers are accusing Altitude of demanding significant annual price increases for the channel's content, which they deemed unacceptable. On October 31, 2019, Altitude was restored by DirecTV after the two sides reached a multi-year agreement. The disputes with Dish Network and Comcast remain unresolved. On June 1, 2021, Altitude waived its exclusive local rights to broadcast game 5 of the NBA playoff game between the Denver Nuggets and the

Portland Trail Blazers The Portland Trail Blazers (colloquially known as the Blazers) are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Con ...

so that Comcast and Dish Network subscribers could watch the game on

NBA TV NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regula ...

(which would normally be subject to blackout restrictions). Altitude is one of a few major regional sports networks that Comcast does not carry. As Comcast is the largest cable provider in the Denver area, this means most Nuggets and Avalanche games are unavailable in Denver without a DirecTV subscription. Unlike other regional sports networks, Altitude is unavailable on live streaming services such as Hulu, Sling TV or YouTube TV. On October 6, 2022, Altitude and

FuboTV FuboTV Inc. (stylized as fuboTV) is an American streaming television service serving customers in the United States, Canada, and Spain that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports. Depending on country, channels offered by Fub ...

announced an agreement that will allow the streaming service to carry the network, including Avalanche and Nuggets games throughout the ten-state region in time for the start of the 2022-23 NBA and NHL seasons.

On-air staff

Current on-air staff

* Kyle Keefe – host * Todd Romero – secondary host

Colorado Avalanche

* Marc Moser – TV play-by-play * Mark Rycroft – TV studio analyst (rotating), TV analyst and radio analyst * Kyle Keefe – TV studio host (rotating) * Rachel Richlinski - TV rink-side reporter (rotating) * Vic Lombardi - TV rink-side reporter (rotating) * Conor McGahey – Radio play-by-play/analyst * Mark Bertagnolli – Radio studio host *

Alan Roach Kelly James Burnham (born March 29, 1966), known professionally as Alan Roach, is an American sports announcer and radio personality. He currently is the public address announcer for the Minnesota Vikings, Colorado Avalanche, and Colorado Rapid ...

– Public address

Colorado Rapids

* Richard Fleming – play-by-play * Marcelo Balboa – analyst * Alan Gordon – analyst

Denver Nuggets

* Chris Marlowe – play-by-play * Bill Hanzlik – studio analyst * Scott Hastings – analyst * Todd Romero – host * Katy Winge – reporter * Chris Dempsey – reporter/analyst * Vic Lombardi – host

Altitude HD

Altitude HD is a high definition simulcast feed of Altitude Sports and Entertainment, that broadcasts in the

1080i 1080i (also known as Full HD or BT.709) is a combination of frame resolution and scan type. 1080i is used in high-definition television (HDTV) and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the scree ...

resolution format. The HD feed broadcasts Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche:: Altitude Sports & Entertainment ::
games in HD. Colorado Rapids soccer matches are not available in HD. The channel also operates a high definition simulcast feed of Altitude 2.

References

{{Navboxes, list1= {{Denver Nuggets {{Colorado Avalanche {{Kroenke Sports & Entertainment {{Denver TV {{U.S. regional sports networks English-language television stations in the United States Sports television networks in the United States Television stations in Denver Television channels and stations established in 2004 Television networks in the United States Kroenke Sports & Entertainment 2004 establishments in Colorado