Today, March 26, the Rockies announced a partnership with TEGNA, Denver's local NBC affiliate, to air ten games during the 2025 season free for anyone with a TV antenna.
TEGNA oversees 9NEWS and KTVD channel 20. Each of the ten games will play on channel 20 while five will be simultaneously broadcast on 9 NEWS.
After the Rockies lost their regional sports network, AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, before the start of the baseball season last year, the team's media rights reverted back to Major League Baseball. MLB created a rockies.tv service for those who wanted to stream every game, and added rockies.tv to cable and satellite TV companies. But those subscriptions can be costly, so the chance to view games over the air is a bonus.
Recently, 9NEWS has had success broadcasting local sports events after partnering with the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets to broadcast twenty games for each team this season. When the partnership began, both teams couldn't be viewed by many local cable customers owing to a dispute between Altitude TV — the broadcasting home of the Nuggets and Avs — and Comcast, the largest cable provider in Colorado.
The high ratings from those broadcasts contributed to the end of the dispute, putting the teams back on Denver Comcast subscribers' TVs.
Perhaps the Rockies could find a new local broadcasting partner if these ten games are met with the same success. Either way, some of MLB's most popular teams will be the Rockies' opponents during the TEGNA broadcasts. See the lineup below.
