ACME Sports Northwest

**ACME Sports Northwest** is an American regional sports network and an over-the-top subscription video streaming service owned by the ACME Sports Group unit of ACME Media. It operates as an affiliate of ACME Sports Regional Networks. The network transmits regional coverage of professional sports events in the Pacific Northwest, focusing on the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers and college sports events involving the Oregon Ducks.

Some of ACME Sports Northwest's content was previously available exclusively to cable customers in Oregon and Washington, and the network is marketed as an add-on to ACME's core linear networks. The network retains its business offices, master control operations, and studio facilities with ACME flagship KUXP-TV (channel 30) and MyNetworkTV affiliate KKRZ (channel 58) at the Park Avenue West Tower in downtown Portland. ACME Sports Northwest runs a backup studio in the Moda Center for Trail Blazers coverage.

## History

After dismantling the Trail Blazers' pay-per-view network BlazerVision in 2001, the team negotiated an agreement with FSN Northwest to become its broadcast partner. FSN Northwest was the network that carried the team's game telecasts until the 2006–2007 season. After the 2006–07 season, Fox Sports Networks chose not to renew its contract with the Portland Trail Blazers. As a direct result of this decision, the Dorado Media Group established a new regional sports network under a joint venture as Dorado SportsNet Northwest to take over the broadcast rights for the team. The first day of the regular season for the Trail Blazers in 2007–2008 began on the same day the network went up, November 1, 2007.

Dorado acquired the broadcasting rights to the Trail Blazers in 2011, and at that time, Dorado SportsNet was also incorporated into the newly formed Dorado Sports Group unit. This culminated in adding an updated graphics package designed to be consistent with its parent network. SportsNet Central was an exception to this initially but would eventually implement a new on-air look. On April 14, 2014, the program switched to the updated graphics package introduced three years earlier in conjunction with that change. The updated graphics were implemented on DSN's live game coverage and all studio shows. In 2016, Dorado SportsNet Northwest transitioned to become DSN Northwest.

On December 14, 2017, the Dorado Media Group made public their intention to create a new company out of a spin-off of several of their existing operations. Although the Justice Department had initially planned for the acquisition to include Dorado Sports' regional businesses, they have since demanded that these operations be divested within the next three months. ACME Networks, LLC officially announced on May 3 that it has agreed to purchase both DSN Northwest and DSN Bay Area for $5.3 billion, pending approval from the relevant regulatory authorities. At the same time, it was also disclosed that to prepare for the imminent closing of the transaction, the newly reorganized post-merger organizational structure of "ACME Sports" will be put into place before the first of 2019.

The transaction was finalized on the 22nd of August 2019 and involved selling two networks. Under the terms of a transitional license deal with the Dorado Media Group, the networks continued to use the Dorado Sports branding in a provisional capacity. As part of a more significant rebranding effort to bring the Dorado SportsNet networks under the umbrella of the ACME Sports brand, the Dorado SportsNet network, formerly known as DSN Northwest, was rebranded as ACME Sports Northwest on October 2, 2019.

## Programming

### Portland Trail Blazers

Most of the Portland Trail Blazers' regular season, pre-season, and early-round playoff games are on ACME Sports Northwest. The network also produces expanded pre-game and post-game analysis (under the Rip City Live and Talking Ball banners) and select NBA Summer League games and season team previews. ACME Sports Northwest holds the exclusive regional television rights to the Portland Trail Blazers. Nevertheless, the team created the telecasts in-house and used their own graphics team, entirely breaking from the typical design language used by ACME Sports. Spectrum SportsNet Northwest broadcast at least 55 Trail Blazers regular season games during its first season of operation in 2007–2008. This was the network's first year of operation. The Portland Trail Blazers had the most regular season games ever televised, with 81, when you include the games broadcast over the air and those seen on television. This was the most televised game in the team's entire history. The newly launched network provided high-definition broadcasts of 28 of the team's 36 home games. Before, certain games were distributed via syndication to over-the-air stations in the specified market territory of the group.

On July 6, 2016, the team announced it would extend its partnership with ACME Sports Northwest through the 2020–2021 season. Also, the organization announced that ACME Sports Northwest would become the sole broadcaster of all regional Trail Blazers games beginning with the 2017–18 season.

Because the Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 2008 to become the Oklahoma City Thunder, Trail Blazers games have also been available in the Seattle region since the 2008–09 NBA season. This is because the SuperSonics played their last season in Seattle before moving to Oklahoma City.

ACME Sports Northwest re-acquired the regional rights to the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League (NHL) before their respective 2021–22 seasons. The Seattle Kraken was an NHL expansion franchise that began play that season. KKRZ and the Blazers have agreed for the latter to transmit the former's regional broadcasts.

### University of Oregon Ducks

The Oregon Sports Network (OSN), a sports syndication service operated by the University of Oregon to broadcast Oregon Ducks events, was looking to expand its coverage and availability. As a result, it negotiated a contract with Dorado SportsNet Northwest around the time it launched to air several of the university's football and basketball games that were not scheduled to be broadcast on a national network or DSN. In 2008, Comcast SportsNet Northwest took over as the primary broadcaster of OSN-produced telecasts. The games continued to be carried simultaneously on the channel three feed of the Fox affiliate station in Eugene, KEUG-TV. Following the introduction of the Pac-12 Networks in September 2012, coverage of Oregon athletic competitions began to decrease. By 2015, the only range of the Ducks that was provided was the weekly sports recap Talking Ducks.

### Other sports events

Also, ACME Sports Northwest covers many other sporting events in the region. The network carried 25 games per season that were televised simultaneously with Sportsnet Pacific and involved the Vancouver Canucks playing in the National Hockey League. ACME Sports Northwest also broadcasted 35 regular-season games from other National Hockey League clubs. This was made possible by its partnerships with other channels owned by ACME. In 2011, it was reported that Dorado SportsNet Northwest would feature a shortened schedule of NHL coverage focusing only on the Vancouver Canucks and the San Jose Sharks. During that same year, it was confirmed that the network would no longer carry any Sharks telecasts. In addition, the network broadcasts a selection of games played in the Portland Winterhawks' home arena, which competes in the Western Hockey League.

Dorado SportsNet Northwest started broadcasting some regular season games of the Tacoma Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League in April 2009. The team's radio network and announcer, Mike Curto, provided the play-by-play commentary. The network announced on March 12, 2014, that it would broadcast almost all of the home games played by the Portland Thunder during the debut season of the Arena Football League team.