The Denver Nuggets start their regular season on Thursday with a home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The 2024-'25 season will bring two big changes: One is Russell Westbrook. The other is Altitude+, a new streaming service that should make it cheaper and easier for hometown fans to watch the Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche.
Altitude+ will provide access to most Nuggets and Avalanche games for $19.95 a month. Separately, dozens of games will be broadcast for free on local over-the-air TV stations.
But there’s a catch. The new options won’t air every single game. So, we read the schedules and did the math to figure out the best options for watching the Nugs and Avs at each price point.
What should I pay for to watch the Nuggets and Avalanche?
Here's the high-level view of how much sports you'll get at different price points.
- Watch a lot of games for cheap-ish: Altitude+ is $19.95/month, and carries the strong majority of Nuggets and Avalanche games, but generally not the national broadcasts. The service is only available in Altitude's nine-state region in the West. It's unclear what devices and operating systems will be supported.
- Watch some games for free over-the-air: Antenna equipment starts around $10 and can be plugged into many modern TVs, with no subscription fees. This will cover about a quarter of Nuggets and Avalanche games, via broadcasts on 9News, My20 and local ABC.
- Get (practically) all games for the lowest price by combining stuff: This one's tricky, but for $60/month, you can get all Nuggets games and almost all Avalanche games. You'll need to combine Altitude+ with Sling and also Sling's innovative antenna-based device. More on that later.
- Spend more money for most/all games, plus other channels, with less hassle:
- DirecTV: Starting at $59.99/month for about half of games, or $74.99 for almost all games. Those prices are with discounts for long contracts. Excludes a couple Avalanche games on Hulu/ESPN+.
- Fubo TV: Starting at $79.99/month for almost all games, except TNT exclusives and a couple Avalanche games on Hulu/ESPN+
- Spectrum TV: Pay $95/month for about half of games or $105/month for all Nuggets games and Avalanche games. Also comes with access to several major streaming services.
Where will the Avalanche and Nuggets be on TV for 2024-25?
There are 82 games in the Nuggets’ regular season. Based on information provided by KSE, we calculated that:
- 51 games will be available exclusively on Altitude platforms for local viewers, airing on both the Altitude TV channels and the Altitude+ streaming service. Some of these games will also air nationally but may be blacked out locally in favor of Altitude.
- 20 will air simultaneously on Altitude platforms and over-the-air for free on 9News and/or My20.
- 6 will air exclusively on TNT, which is available in many cable and streaming TV packages
- 4 will air exclusively on ABC, which is available in some TV packages and for free over-the-air
- Some games will also air on NBA TV, but that's not relevant to viewers around Colorado, where the NBA TV airings will be blacked out. Those games will still be available on Altitude.
The Avalanche have 82 regular season games, and they have already played seven. Of the remaining games, we calculate:
- 45 games will air exclusively on Altitude platforms for local viewers. Some of these will air nationally on TNT, but will be blacked out locally in favor of Altitude.
- 20 games will air simultaneously on Altitude platforms and over-the-air for free on 9News and/or My20.
- 5 will air exclusively on ESPN or ESPN2
- 3 will air exclusively on TNT and MAX
- 2 will air exclusively on ESPN+ or Hulu
For more information, check out the full Avalanche and Nuggets TV schedules.
Altitude+
Kroenke Sports’ new streaming service is $19.95 a month. (Five bucks more than Netflix’s ad-free membership, for reference.)
The service, which launched this week, is initially available on iOS and Android mobile devices, as well as through web browsers. It will allow locals to watch most of the Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche seasons without subscribing to a more expensive TV package. It also will offer a new option to Comcast subscribers, who have been stuck without the Altitude TV channels for five years due to a contract dispute.
You’ll get all the games, except the ones exclusive to national channels. Pre-and-post game coverage, Altitude Sports originals and local college sports are also included.
For now, Altitude+ will be available for iOS and Android devices and on web browsers, but it's supposed to expand to other options in the near future.
The app's tech platform, ViewLift, is compatible with Apple TV, Android TV, Samsung, Roku, LG, Fire TV, Vizio, Xbox and other platforms. Altitude+ will roll out to more devices "early in the two teams' regular seasons," per ViewLift.
Current subscribers to TV packages will get free access to Altitude+, if for some reason that's more convenient than watching through their TV platform. Some TV services — DirectTV Stream and Fubo — haven't been integrated with this option yet.
Altitude+ will only be usable inside Altitude's nine-state territory. Some of those states, like Montana and Arizona, only allow users to stream Avalanche games. If you travel elsewhere, it will stop working.
Watch dozens of local TV broadcasts with an antenna
A cord-cutter’s best friend, a television antenna receives over-the-air broadcast television signals to access a limited array of channels for free.
In all, 40 games for the Nuggets and Avalanche will be broadcast over-the-air in a new arrangement with 9News and its sister station My20. (It's a little tricky: 9News will broadcast only 10 of those games, but My20 will broadcast the full set of 40 games.)
The stations are only broadcasting those games over-the-air; they won't be available to watch over cable on the 9News or My20 channels. They also won't be available on the 9News+ app.
Additionally, you should still be able to use your TV tuner to watch local broadcasts of any games airing on ABC.
While it’s not nothing, you won’t be getting the full season. If those broadcasts are the only way you’re able to watch games, it accounts for about a quarter of the regular season. (As a treat, a TV tuner will also let you watch most of the Broncos season for free.)
Antennas vary by price and can be found for as cheap as $10. Service is affected by location and weather.
Combine broadcast, Altitude+ and Sling
Sling offers a unique solution here, and it's the cheapest way to get near-total coverage of the teams.
Sling is a super-cheap streaming service, with Sling Orange costing $40 a month. For Denver sports fans, most importantly, that gets you ESPN and TNT. But it doesn't include broadcast networks like ABC, so you're missing out on some national games, and other major broadcast events.
Sling has a solution. The company will give you a little device called the AirTV. You can connect AirTV to a cheap, tiny antenna somewhere in your house. It will capture your local broadcasts, then send them through the internet to your TV, phone, or other devices. They'll appear alongside the normal channels in Sling's streaming service. You can also use an AirTV as a DVR to record over-the-air broadcasts, if you connect an external hard drive or buy a version with a hard drive. (Ed. note: I swear, it works.)
Sling also lacks regional sports networks like Altitude. But now you can add on Altitude+ , getting you all Nuggets games and almost all Avalanche games for $60 a month.
The biggest hitch is that some of the games will be on the Sling app, while you'll need to switch to Altitude+ for others.
Deluxe streaming, cable and satellite options
There are a few different TV packages that will get you some or all of the games. We looked at DirectTV, FuboTV and Spectrum TV, all of which can be streamed to devices instead of relying on hardware in the home.
DirecTV subscribers should be able to watch (almost) every single game of the season, due to having access to national channels like ESPN, ABC and also the Altitude channels. They are missing those couple Avs games on ESPN+/Hulu, though.
DirecTV starts at $59.99 with a long contract. But you'll have to level up to at least $74.99 a month to get the Altitude games.
Fubo starts at $79.99 per month, which gets you almost everything for the Nugs and Avs. Fubo includes Altitude at that price. But it doesn't currently have TNT, due to reasons. It also doesn't include the couple ESPN+/Hulu games for the Avs.
Spectrum TV is owned by Charter Communications. The most relevant option seems to be the $105/month plan, which will get you all Nuggets games and Avalanche games. That package includes Altitude, ESPN+, Disney+ Basic and Paramount+ Essential – so, good for the big spenders.
However, it seems like Spectrum's availability is hit-or-miss, based on our testing with its website. Spectrum also has a $95/month plan that offers a lot fewer Nugs and Avs games.
Other cable-without-cable-boxes services exist, but DirectTV, Fubo and Spectrum are the only ones with permission to stream Altitude Sports feeds.
So, what's your plan?
Email [email protected] to let us know how you're strategizing (or not) for another season of Denver sports viewing.
