April Maynes has been a Nuggets fan for more than 30 years. She has been there for the team that won 11 games in 1998 and the 57-win team that crashed out of the playoffs in the first round in 2013. She remembers sitting through some games at McNichols Sports Arena, the Nuggets old home, when it felt like the arena was half full, and still she went again.
For the last 11 years, she and her husband have even paid for season tickets — upper level, at center court. They go to every game. There is no better way to watch the majesty of Nikola Jokic, or the high-scoring guile of Jamal Murray.
Also, for now, it is the only way.
A painful paradox has hit the Denver area over the last three seasons. It is boom times for the Nuggets. This may be the franchise’s golden generation, with a possible title contender fronted by the league’s MVP. So many Nuggets fans, however, cannot see any of their games — caught in the middle of a staring contest between a billion-dollar corporation and a billionaire family.
They have been buffeted by industry trends that may undo the status quo for sports on television soon enough. The network that broadcasts their games, Altitude Sports, has been in stalemate with Comcast and Dish Network since Sept. 2019. Only three teams have more wins than the Nuggets since the start of the 2019-20 season but unless they’ve been at Ball Arena for them, it’s likely their fans have seen few, if any, of them.
“That’s what’s disgusting about it,” Maynes said. “I’ve been a fan long enough that it was horrible. We’re talking about when there was literally 4,000 people in the stands. If that.
