What do I do to watch the Blazers this year?

by premthegrem on Jul 25, 2008 11:59 PM PDT Comment 11 comments

Here's my problem. I went to 4 games at the Garden last year, and was planning on buying something like the pick 6 this year so that I can get a chance to watch the really hyped games coming up this season. Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy season tix this year because the ER job I am working goes on shifts, and the schedule is set up on a monthly basis. What that means in a nutshell is that I can't hammer out a schedule through next April so that I can set aside time to go to whatever blazers games I want. Thus, I would prefer the flexibility associated with buying a small set of tickets and choosing the games I want to go to, rather than getting a rigid package and finding out that I can't trade out shifts. Anyway, I am concerned that with the rapid rate of season ticket sales, the blazers will be sold out completely before the season begins. Is this a legitimate concern? I haven't bought tix on a regular basis, so I don't know what the situation is.

Anyway, the possibility of going to the Garden is one option for watching the games. My other problem is with trying to find out how to lock up a subscription for tv coverage. As a dish network subscriber, Comcast has me by the balls, and until they get a deal worked out with satellite providers, I won't have a shot at watching any games on TV outside of national coverage on TNT or KGW (I don't know if TNT gets any blazers games) or through NBA TV. From what I hear though, NBA TV is only a legitimate option for road games, because Comcast blacks out the home games. Can anyone shed some more light on this issue of tv coverage? Any idea of what games are available for a dish subscriber, or an NBA TV subscriber...etc.

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NBA TV is not available in Spain.

I wonder how much it cost a miracle.

The Midnight Rambler

by amlmart1 on Jul 26, 2008 12:22 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

oh yea,

I’m sorry amlmart, that wasn’t terribly sensitive.

Andy Roddick has the most wimbledon titles in the world. He just hides them in Federer's trophy case

by premthegrem on Jul 26, 2008 12:30 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

you can buy it on the internet and watch it from any computer i believe

as for other countries idk. If price is your problem, I for one, would be glad to donate.

Bayless4Ever

by Sabonis4Ever on Jul 26, 2008 9:45 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks a lot, Sabas. I know there are a bunch of generous people in this site.

But I don´t need money. The problem is that League Pass is not available here by internet, probably because a broadcasting company has bought the NBA broadcasting rights. This company doesn´t sell the games, it only allow you to watch one or two games per week and you can´t choose these games, so I only might watch two or three Blazers games in the whole season. Anyway, I should sleep more instead of watching the Blazers in the middle of the night.

The Midnight Rambler

by amlmart1 on Jul 27, 2008 9:41 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hah, Indian guy working in a hospital huh?

The legal and hassle free option (catch is the price)
Buy league pass, it’s $180 bucks though. All the games aren’t even in HD (at least that was the case last season). You could lie to yourself and say how awesome it is to watch Charlotte Bobcat games whenever you want, that might help you absorb the sticker price.

You get to stream games live and watch archives as well.

The legally messy but free options

There are a few sites that give you link to the league pass video stream that you can play without actually buying league pass. Usually someone posts the link in a gameday thread (most of the time it’s Damir). At the end of the season last year though, most of them were Sternerized. A few places still exist though.

The video quality of the first two options is decent, but not great. The resolution is a little worse than standard def (480p,4:3) on the TV.

Sopcast. Watch Chinese live streams of the games in worse quality in a weird p2p stream program. Not a big fan of this one. It’s ok when there’s nothing better though.

Nonlive options

Bittorrent archives, the Robbin Hood’s rip league pass broadcasts, local broadcasts too, and put them on the internet. Sometimes they are in shiny 720p (1280×720) resolution.

The two best sites are sportbit.org (need a registration code) and dravka.bt (might not have gotten the name exactly right). They usually have nearly every game viewable the day after.

Another good idea is hd-t.org, they are LA fans though. Still they put up the entire playoffs on BT. A lot of vidos were also encoded in HD quality.

Other non-live options

LP archives, this stopped working like near the end of the season. Basically on this forum that has the sopcast feeds to NBA games they posted the links to LP archives. The archives only work for 2 days though.

Do-it-your self option
Download a program called urlsnooper, go to NBA.com and the streaming vids section and find a temporary link that you can use to watch the game. This is pretty handy.

Dead Finks Don't Talk
But dead finks don't talk too well
They've got a shaky sense of diction
It's not so much a living hell
It's just a dying fiction

WORD UP. STAY. FRESCO.

by Dheepan on Jul 26, 2008 1:10 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs

Another interesting idea

I heard from someone that you can buy league pass and multiple people can use it to watch the online feed (even at the same time).

If that’s true, since there are so many people that lack the ability to watch Blazer games (I’m looking at you coincast), we could pool funds together and buy a BlazersEdge league pass account.

Dead Finks Don't Talk
But dead finks don't talk too well
They've got a shaky sense of diction
It's not so much a living hell
It's just a dying fiction

WORD UP. STAY. FRESCO.

by Dheepan on Jul 26, 2008 1:12 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

lol,

thanks dheep. Yea, I pretty much fit that stereotype to a tee, except I’m not in med school yet (trying though). Anyway, you covered the TV side in great detail, thanks for that. Do you know anything about the situation with blazer tix? Will they have tix available for individual game purchases, or will all the games be sold out once all the season tix are sold?

Andy Roddick has the most wimbledon titles in the world. He just hides them in Federer's trophy case

by premthegrem on Jul 26, 2008 1:20 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

They should have single game tickets, or packages available

I’m not sure though, I don’t live anywhere near Portland. The thing is with your lack of flexibility you probably couldn’t just buy a ticket two weeks in advance. And with the popularity of the team so high, you probably couldn’t get a ticket (at least not a decent one) on gameday.

That’s all hypothetical though. Someone who actually goes to games on a consistent basis could give you a better answer.

Dead Finks Don't Talk
But dead finks don't talk too well
They've got a shaky sense of diction
It's not so much a living hell
It's just a dying fiction

WORD UP. STAY. FRESCO.

by Dheepan on Jul 26, 2008 1:36 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

sometimes season ticket holders

will put games they know they are not going to on craigslist.com or (i think-noahr?) ticketexchange.com for face or more.

"Doing research= good
Making up things=bad."

---jksnake99

by ptwnblzr on Jul 26, 2008 7:01 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Sometimes means all the time usually

Out of all the season ticket holders….there will be a least a few who can’t make it to the game that night an will put up their tix on Craigs list. Also ..outside the garden there are guys who buy season tickets and sell them out front on game night for what it is worth

BTW The Presdident of Comcast Sports Net was on BFT (got beat up pretty bad by that knucklehead) saying that they are trying very hard to get a carriage deal in place with the Sat providers before the start of the season. FWIW

Homer: "Oh no!! A Bear is eating my father!." (On seeing Selma kissing Grampa)

by 92wastheyear on Jul 26, 2008 10:24 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

The Steal of the Game

are usually good deals. I think I got 4 game tickets, a pair of free movie passes, and a $20 coupon to BW3 for like $200… I think they even let me pick the games because I already had 1/2 season tickets to some of the games in the package. Also, I tended to get better seats (300 level, between the FT line and the baseline. They’re quite a bit closer than the south end of the 300 level.

M, period. Fresh, comma.

by manzell on Jul 26, 2008 7:57 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs