the Utah Jazz gave to me... No KJZZ
So I guess that should read the "Utah Jazz took away from me." And technically they're not taking away KJZZ, they're just not ever broadcasting Jazz games again on that station.
It started when it was getting late in the offseason and the team still hadn't announced its TV schedule. So I emailed the program directory at KJZZ to find out when they were going to be releasing the schedule. I didn't ask if there were going to be games, just when would we know,
BBJ: Has the schedule been released for what games will be on KJZZ and what games will be on FSN?
KJZZ: There will be no games on our station this year. All games will be on FSN Utah.
That post prompted Siler and others to question Randy Rigby about it when they were in Europe which Randy denied,
Jazz president Randy Rigby also disputed a blog report that KJZZ will not be televising any Jazz games this season. Rigby said the final decision has not been made and that he has some issues to address on the subject once he gets back to Utah. If nothing else, he's been quizzed on the matter in three different countries in the past week.
You can read the team's response to me and then the official announcement.
It still seems like this has been in the works for a long time given that the program manager was so up front with me when I asked. Deals like this normally don't come to fruition in just a couple weeks. Also, as was pointed out by someone, the pocket schedules that had been printed stated,
"All games televised on FSN-Utah in High Definition (except nationally televised games on TNT or ABC)."
I'm guessing that the printing of that had to be planned for a while before it was released.
I'm sure they were working on the final details, but it was a done deal a long time ago I venture. There were comments on my first post about it that the Jazz wouldn't comment on stating that FSN had offered them a deal that they couldn't refuse. But that and other comments all appeared to be true.
As it is, it's pretty significant that the station that had been carrying the Jazz, and still bares it's name, dropped the coverage for almost 20 years. Now FSN has a contract through 2020 for exclusive rights to Jazz games.
There are some winners, namely those that didn't get to see KJZZ but now will have extra games to watch on FSN. There are losers in this, more than the winners I would think, that could only watch the Jazz over the air. That's how I first started watching though I was a fan before that. But I wonder if I hadn't been able to watch, would I have lost interest? Hard to say. It will be hard to say what impact, if any, this has on the Jazz keeping and building up fans.
As I stated before though, if the deal leads to the long-term viability and stability of the team, then it will be a good deal in the end.