The latest on the messy Jazz+ situation for out-of-state Jazz fans

If you haven’t been following, it’s been a bad week for Jazz a bunch of fans living in Idaho, Montana, and the eastern parts of Washington and Oregon. Recently, the Jazz made a big announcement that they had expanded their broadcast territory and would be helping Jazz fans in the out-of-state areas see Jazz games. Here’s a map of the broadcast areas.

For fans in the areas of Root Sports, there was a lot of frustration. Before this news, they were told that to be able to watch Jazz games with a league pass account since they were outside of the Jazz+ broadcast area. Here’s what that map looked like to them when they were told they could watch with league pass.

But with that new announcement, Jazz fans in the Root Sports area logged into league pass only to find out they couldn’t watch the Jazz. It’s hard to imagine worse timing than the day before the Jazz season opener.

There was a lot of outcry online and Ryan Smith in a radio interview mentioned that if Jazz fans needed a refund, they could reach out directly to him.

But it appears this is a bigger issue than the Jazz likely expected as this announcement came out today.

For Jazz fans in those areas who bought league pass, make sure to go through the refund process here https://support.watch.nba.com/hc/en-us.

All in all, it’s a very frustrating situation for those particular fans. The Jazz said they are looking at all their options with this, and they likely have their hands tied in all the TV rights they’re working through, but that doesn’t remove the sting they’re feeling.

One thing to consider, this is a pretty revolutionary new product and those types of things will always come with hiccups and unforeseen issues. This hiccup for those fans in those areas is a pretty big one, though, and you hope they can find out more to help them out. Now the cost for those specific Jazz fans just became much more expensive, which is part of what the Jazz were trying to avoid when they created Jazz+.

A big shoutout to Sarah Todd of Deseret News for her coverage, as well as Ryan Miller at KSL. He did a great story on this that goes more in-depth.