The Seattle Kraken will have a new TV broadcast home for the foreseeable future, the team announced Thursday morning. After three seasons with ROOT Sports as the flagship television network for the team, the Kraken will partner with TEGNA (KING 5 and KONG) in a “multi-year agreement.” All games that haven’t been picked up for national coverage will be viewable on KONG, and a handful of games will also be simulcast on KING 5.
Additionally, the team has entered into a new first-of-its-kind partnership with Prime Video, which will allow streaming of all locally broadcasted games to Prime members for no additional cost.
These new deals should make games more accessible for local viewers, who will now be able to watch Kraken hockey “over the air,” even without a cable subscription (a simple cheap antenna should get you access to both KING 5 and KONG), or with a more economical streaming option than before.
“ROOT has been a terrific partner for us; we have appreciated their support as we determined our broadcast plans moving forward,” said Kraken owner, Sam Holloway in a press release. “Today’s announcement is a game changer for our fans. Our goal is to increase the ways they can watch our games – whether they’re cheering us on at home or on the go. To have both TEGNA and Prime Video as trusted partners is a dream come true. I can’t wait for more fans to fall in love with Kraken hockey.”
The viewing area for both the over-the-air option and the streaming option will cover Washington, Oregon, and Alaska (KGW in Portland and KREM in Spokane will carry the games, since KONG and KING 5 are not readily available in those markets).
Why move away from ROOT?
The broadcast team at ROOT did a fantastic job. We’ve watched plenty of local broadcasts from other markets, and we can honestly say (biases aside) that the Kraken broadcast has been one of, if not the best in the business over the past three seasons.
But there were barriers for fans or potential fans to access games on TV, and limited streaming options made games on ROOT difficult to find without some sort of significant financial investment from viewers.
The content wasn’t the issue. The issue was simply that for fans to watch ROOT, they not only needed a cable subscription like Xfinity, they also got an added kick recently of having to pay even more for an elevated tier to access the sports network.
For those that had switched out of cable, Fubo TV was a fine solution, but to get ROOT, “cord cutters” still had to pay north of $100 per month.
Now, there are more economical (and even free) options available to viewers, a huge win for Kraken fans.
What’s happening with the broadcast team?
Up to now, games have been produced mostly by ROOT employees and/or contractors, with some Kraken personnel factoring in. Moving forward, production of the games will not be handed over to TEGNA, though their employees will certainly be involved.
Instead, a lot of the production will now be done “in house” by the Kraken, meaning more of the individuals working on the show will be team employees, and they will use some of TEGNA’s existing infrastructure. This is a shift from how things were being done previously and (we assume) gives the team a bit more control over branding, graphics, visuals, etc.
The difficult piece here is that there are good people at ROOT who did a great job on broadcasts for three seasons that are now facing uncertainty. On the flipside, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the Kraken hire some of these individuals who have already been part of the show.
As for the on-air broadcast team, all the Kraken employees that you became accustomed to seeing will be around next season. So, we expect John Forslund, Eddie Olczyk, JT Brown, Alison Lukan, and Nick Olczyk to continue participating in 2024-25.
Other on-air personalities that appeared on games previously are ROOT employees, including Piper Shaw. Currently, there isn’t much that we can share on this front.
Good news for Kraken fans
Whichever way you slice it, this is a positive move for Kraken fans. Our hope is that it will truly allow the team to reach more new fans and get hooks into more casual fans to turn them into diehards. The franchise has done a solid job of building its brand locally, but we have wondered about the true reach beyond the Seattle metro area. This is a huge shift that should really help on this front.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
I really hope Piper still continues with the team! She’s the best!
Thank you for the informative article! Always appreciate SOH content. So thrilled that John, Eddie, JT, Alison and Nick will remain on the broadcasts!
still taking a giant dump on all the potential fans in Idaho and Montana.
The Kraken are not “taking a dump” on potential fans in Idaho and Montana.
The NHL sets the TV territory rights. I’ll re-type that: The NHL sets the TV territory rights.
If you don’t like which teams are considered your “home” team (or non-blackout team), you should take it up with the NHL. The Kraken don’t control that any more than any other team.
ESPN plus will get you the same games for a cheaper price then what you’d have to pay for root. Outside of the games on TNT (which no one will have access to without some kind of cable package) you’d get 70 plus games for like 10 bucks a month.
I did see somewhere that Tegna will try to get other affiliations in the area so that might include some Idaho stations. Do you get KREN (out of Spokane) where you are at? Montana might be a little more complicated due to NHL TV territories. If you are in Montana, I think the ESPN+ would be a great economical option.
Wow! Excited for the future! Seems like great news!
I am a hockey fan and have a love for 2 teams. The Vancouver Canucks and the Kraken. I will continue with my NHL hockey package so I can watch other stars in the game like Connor Bedard and Jason Robertson among other established greats and soon to be hall of famers. This is great news for the casual fans and I hope they have been watching games on ESPN because this years run is some amazing physical fast hockey.
Sorry Darren, this sucks. This is not good news to everyone who is busy and wants to watch all the games (i.e., your readers). To do that, I need to be able to both: 1) stream games from everywhere and 2) DVR the games so I can start late and catch up. Fubo was somewhat laggy and buggy, but it basically worked for these purposes. And it was a little pricey, but not as bad as cable or directv.
Now, as far as I can tell, it is no longer even possible AT ALL to both stream and DVR games. KONG is completely useless, it doesn’t stream anywhere. (Who the hell is going to get an antenna? What is this, 1985? That part made me laugh out loud.) Yes, there is now the streaming option on Prime, which is cheaper than Fubo, but the big problem there is I don’t believe it has DVR capability. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s livestream or nothing. Then perhaps after the game is over, it will be available on replay on ESPN Plus, if you also have that subscription. But no jumping in in the middle and “catching up.” And that is how I currently watch almost every game.
I guess with Prime the Kraken can theoretically reach more casual fans who pay for Prime anyway. But it seems unlikely that a large number of casual or non-fans are just going to log into prime video, browse for something to watch and stumble on the Kraken game.
I still have a TiVo. I could DVR games last season on Root Sports and I’ll be able to DVR them next season on Kong.
75% are on Kong though
Prime has DVR functionality built into it – it’s been that way for TNF for a while.
As for King5 we still need more details but I imagine there will be efforts to make this as accessible as possible.
I wondered about the DVR/on-demand option as well so I looked back to see all the NFL games they had over the season were still available on replay when I checked this morning. When it is available on replay is a fair question. The one nuance is this will be a little different since it is geo-fenced a bit. The other question I wonder is if you can start from the beginning after the game has begun. My gut feel is that option was there for NFL games and my hope would be that it is also available for Kraken games.
Thanks John, I hope so too. If you find out, let us know!
Listen Foist, you’re coming in a little hot with your “this sucks” language. Get Boist in here… He’s way more level-headed. (Jk)
That said, I’m asking around for you to try to find out how this will look on Prime Video. As Turbo said, yes, the idea is to make this very accessible, so I imagine they will try to work out every roadblock that comes up.
ALSO! What’s wrong with the antenna option? They’re $16! Maybe that’s not how YOU want to watch games, but for somebody who is more cost conscious and doesn’t want to shell out thousands for cable, that’s a pretty damn good option, IMO!
Ok, I’ll step off now.
Sorry. Yes they made live viewing cheaper — and yes, that’s a positive — but with all this great technology out there, I get frustrated that they can’t just put it all together and make it available. For example, Youtube TV is so user-friendly and fast, fast forwards and rewinds amazingly well, gives you limitless DVR, and so on. But it doesn’t carry local sports teams — and still won’t. Now that I’ve seen how great that can be, I just want that, or something as good, with my darned sports on it. That said, if I’m wrong and I can “catch up” on Prime, then yes, my concerns mostly go away, and I take it all back. I confess I have not streamed sports on Prime very much.
I also wonder — will we need the new “premium” commercial-free Prime Video subscription to get the Kraken? Or will regular Prime suffice? We don’t know yet. I’m betting it’s the premium, just based on how these things go, but then again I’m a pessimist (although not as much as Boist).
I’m still having a lot of trouble getting excited about KONG. Does anyone really get the HD antennas? I’ve heard they don’t work very well especially if you want high-quality HD video. And if you are a sports fan — even if not much of a hockey fan (yet) — you still need ESPN etc. for all the nationally broadcast games, playoffs, etc., so you still need some subscription for some service that includes it. Sports-wise, an antenna gets you very little. So the idea that they are reaching many new sports fans with KONG seems like a REAL reach to me. The more positive development is Prime — again, especially if we get full DVR capability with it.
Eyyyy! I’m plenty level-headed, just not about sports.
I’ve watched a few NFL games on Prime and they do have rewind/start from the beginning capabilities. I think it’ll be fine. Probably.
For the football games, Amazon’s website says:
“12) Can I rewind, pause and fast forward on my device?
Yes. Go to any Thursday Night Football game and select “Record Thursday Night Football” or “Add to Watchlist and Record” to enable recordings for the full season. Enabling this feature before the game starts will provide you access to the full game replay and the ability to watch from the beginning if joining late. Enabling this feature during the game will provide you access to the full game replay only, but limited ability to scrub back to earlier in the broadcast. Enabling this feature after the game will provide you access to future game replays and the ability to watch from the beginning.
So yeah, if that’s true for the Kraken broadcasts too, then I take back all my griping, and this is definitely good news. (I had previously found contrary information somewhere else but it was probably outdated.)
$16 for the antenna… but how much for the video cassette recorder (VCR) so I can watch those east coast road trip games when I get home from the Fotomat?
Al Michaels is calling NFL games on Amazon Prime. Can we get him to call some Kraken games? 😉 #DoYouBelieveInMiracles
Regarding AP games: It’s still going to be the Kraken Krew.
Al should work at ScamDuel or GriftKings.
It will be a shame not to be able to watch the Kraken as they move forward. As an Oregon resident who won’t have access to local Seattle TV, I will wish them good luck in the future.
One thing I saw mentioned elsewhere but I think is worth mentioning – apparently the Kraken left 20 million on the table by leaving Root, which leaves them dependent on ad revenue to make up the difference. This probably means a couple things: 1) they are incentivized to get as many eyes on the team as possible, and that means making watching these games as easy and as seamless of a process possible and 2) this organization is flush with cash right now.
Also I’ve used digital HD antennas in the past and have been impressed with their quality, so all in all there should be many ways to watch this team.
Thankfully we have a long off-season to figure this all out 😔
Wow foist do you work for Root?
I love this move, I always thought that the Root deal was a huge mistake and the kraken as a new franchise should have put their product in front of as many people for as little of cost as they can. Making it accessible to casual viewers is how you develop and grow a fan base.
I’m very puzzled about the Pipper Shaw situation? I mean don’t other talking heads work for Root as well? Is this just an excuse to drop her? I think she has done a great job and should be part of the broadcast moving forward.
I hated the Root situation. And if the Prime broadcast has DVR capability (which I have now discovered it has for NFL broadcasts), then I have no problem with the new situation. Regardless, making the live broadcasts more widely and cheaply accessible is certainly good.
What about those of us in your Firebirds affiliate state of California, Coachella Valley specifically? How will we be able to watch these games? If I’m reading this correctly only Prime members in the PNW will see the games. Also, I don’t think there’s an antenna big enough to reach y’all up there in Seattle. (Please note that’s sarcasm, not stupidity.)