America’s move to on-demand streaming has taken its toll on the Portland Trail Blazers’ broadcasting partner, ROOT Sports Northwest. Root is owned by the Seattle Mariners, whose owner, John Stanton, provided a rare interview prior to Major League Baseball’s opening day.
In an interview with Seattle’s KOMO 4, he recognized the limitations of viewing ROOT through the region, as consumers move away from cable TV. Stanton notes that ROOT has lost almost two-thirds of its subscribers in ten years, falling from 3.3 million to just 1.2 million today. He doesn’t disclose how many of those subscribers were lost in Comcast’s move of ROOT to a higher-cost tier.