Altitude Sports and Entertainment

Altitude Sports and Entertainment (usually referred to as simply Altitude) is an American regional sports cable and satellite television channel that is owned by Stan Kroenke. The channel, which serves the Rocky Mountain region of the United States (specifically the Denver metropolitan area), features a mix of professional, collegiate and high school sporting events as well as some entertainment-based programming.

Launched on September 4, 2004, Altitude is headquartered in the Denver suburb of Centennial, Colorado. Altitude also operates Altitude 2, a secondary overflow channel that is used in the event of scheduling conflicts with games simultaneously set to air on the main Altitude channel.

History

Altitude Sports and Entertainment was launched on September 4, 2004.

Altitude agreed to carry some games from the first season of the Fall Experimental Football League in October and November 2014.^[3]

Programming

The channel holds broadcast rights to the four Denver-based professional sports teams that are owned by Kroenke – the NBA's Denver Nuggets, the NHL's Colorado Avalanche, the Major League Soccer's Colorado Rapids, and the National Lacrosse League's Colorado Mammoth. Altitude features in-depth coverage of the four teams, including holding broadcast rights to the majority of Avalanche, Rapids and Nuggets games. The channel's logo bug changes colors depending on the team being broadcast (powder blue and gold for the Nuggets, burgundy and dark blue for the Avalanche, maroon and black for the Mammoth and burgundy and sky blue for the Rapids).

Altitude also holds television rights to the Major League Lacrosse's Denver Outlaws, Pacific Coast League's Colorado Springs Sky Sox (an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers) and ECHL's Colorado Eagles. Altitude also broadcasts live college athletics from the American Sports Network and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. They also simulcast select college football games from Montana, Montana State, New Mexico State and the Southland Conference. The channel previously broadcast Southeastern Conference, Western Athletic Conference, Big East Conference, and Big 12 Conference games from ESPN Plus.

It also airs entertainment programming including live theatrical productions and concerts, as well as a simulcast of veteran basketball referee Irv Brown's weekdaily radio program. Former Colorado governor Bill Owens hosted a talk show on the network during the final two years of his administration.

Altitude also produced coverage of St. Louis Rams preseason games, as Kroenke is also the principal owner of the Rams. These games do not air on Altitude (due to Denver being in the Broncos' market). They instead aired on local stations in the Rams' market, which was mainly the St. Louis area until the Rams relocated to Los Angeles in 2016. It is currently unclear if Altitude will continue to provide coverage of the Rams preseason games in Los Angeles, although it is known that local stations in the team's market will now cover Southern California (excluding San Diego, due to the Chargers' presence there), Southern Nevada, and Hawaii.

On-air staff

Current on-air staff

• Kyle Keefe – host
• Todd Romero – secondary host

Colorado Avalanche

• Mike Haynes – play-by-play (1997–present)
• Peter McNab – analyst (1997–present)
• Mark Rycroft – analyst (2006–present)
• Lauren Gardner

Denver Nuggets

• Bill Hanzlik
• Scott Hastings
• Julie Browman
• Ally Sturm
• Vic Lombardi

Altitude HD

Altitude HD^[4] is a high definition simulcast feed of Altitude Sports and Entertainment, that broadcasts in the 1080i resolution format. The HD feed broadcasts Denver Nuggets^[5] and Colorado Avalanche^[6] games in HD. Colorado Rapids soccer matches are not available in HD. The channel also operates a high definition simulcast feed of Altitude 2.

References