Todd Romero Loses Discrimination Lawsuit Against Altitude TV

Altitude Sports & Entertainment has prevailed in a discrimination lawsuit filed by a now-former employee, sportscaster Todd Romero. On March 14, following a trial overseen by United States District Judge Christine Arguello, a jury decided against Romero, who'd pressed multiple allegations against Altitude, the broadcast home of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche.

Steve Smith, president of KSE Media Ventures, which encompasses Altitude, offers this statement about the outcome of the case: "We are pleased the jury agreed that Mr. Romero was treated fairly by our network. I appreciate the hard work of the KSE staff that assisted our legal team in preparing for this case. KSE and Altitude remain proud of our longstanding, company-wide commitment to a fair, non-discriminatory work environment."

Romero praises his legal team, headed by Stacey Campbell of Denver-based Campbell Litigation, while acknowledging that fighting Altitude and KSE, both owned by powerful entrepreneur Stan Kroenke, whose portfolio includes the Nuggets and Avs, proved a daunting task. "It's hard going up against the 112th-richest man in the world," Romero says of Kroenke, who placed 47th on the Forbes 400 list in 2023 and 137th on the publication's roster of global billionaires that same year. "Basically, I brought a knife to a gunfight."

In his original Altitude TV bio, Romero, who's in his late fifties, notes that he was born in the Mile High City, raised in Fort Collins, and graduated from the University of Denver in 1986 with a degree in mass communications and journalism. He subsequently spent five years on the staff of 9News before leaving Colorado for TV gigs in Kansas City and Orlando, as well as a position with World Wrestling Entertainment.

Romero returned to the state in 2012, when Altitude offered him the opportunity to cover the Nuggets, one of his favorite teams since childhood. But his on-air work went well beyond hoops. An excerpt from Romero's lawsuit, originally filed in 2021, notes that he "has hosted pre- and postgame shows for the Nuggets and Avalanche, provided play-by-play analysis for high school football and for the University of Denver men’s and women’s basketball teams. Romero has maintained excellent performance, recently reflected by an Emmy award with the 2018 Nuggets broadcast team, and two Emmy nominations he received during 2019."

The suit contended that during his time at Altitude TV, "most, if not all, on-air talent, including Romero, received employment contracts." In January 2016, Romero signed a two-year pact with an option for a one-year extension through January 2019; he earned $95,481 in year one and $98,345 in year two, with $101,295.55 earmarked for the potential year three. In June and July of 2016, however, Romero used his accrued vacation time to enter a rehabilitation facility that he hoped would help him stop taking the sleeping medication he was prescribed after hurting his neck. Even though he successfully kicked his habit and returned to work, the complaint maintained that he was treated like damaged goods.

In September 2017, the lawsuit contended, one executive told Romero that he was being "significantly underpaid" and deserved a new contract with a salary bump to $140,000. But the next month, the same executive reportedly told Romero that his higher-ups had rejected the suggestion "in part because Romero went to rehab to address his addiction."

After that, the suit asserted, the exec changed his story, saying that negotiations for a new pact could begin after Romero completed the third year under his previous contract — and when his pay inched up to just over $100,000 as scheduled, he thought Altitude TV had picked up his option. He later learned that wasn't the case; the exec said he and everyone else would be moved to "at-will employment instead of contracts." But the complaint charged that at least seven of Romero's co-workers had received contracts — all of them "non-Hispanic, non-brown-skin colored, and/or non-disabled/regarded as disabled."

In subsequent years, Romero's face time ebbed. Rather than being allowed to continue with his Nuggets hosting duties during the 2020-2021 NBA season, the suit said he was "relegated to appearing in feature stories, which are typically four- to five-minute pre-recorded video pieces aired during the pre-game show of the Nuggets game’s broadcast." Developments like these prompted Romero to submit a discrimination charge to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in late 2019, and just over a year later, in January 2021, the agency sent him a right-to-sue letter. The document led directly to the lawsuit, whose arguments Altitude and KSE blasted in a 2023 motion for summary judgment.

Among other things, the motion, which was intended to short-circuit the trial but failed to do so, held that Romero was bumped from hosting a program called Sports Social in part because he "did not have as strong a social media presence as other talent," and that during a July 30, 2020, guest appearance on the show, he was "allegedly in such a visibly altered state that Altitude made the business judgment not to air the program."

Shortly thereafter, Romero returned to rehab. But after completing the program, he discovered that his role at Altitude had diminished even further — and in October, he was laid off as part of a claimed reduction in force. But in an interview with Westword shortly after Romero was pink-slipped, attorney Campbell suggested that the dismissal and the lawsuit were connected.

"When Mr. Romero's employment was terminated," Campbell said, "Altitude and Kroenke Sports gave him a waiver to review and sign that would have had him waive his claims against the company that are pending in court. Mr. Romero refused to sign those." He added that "Mr. Romero was the only full-time on-air talent to be let go and the only full-time on-air talent to have sued the company for discrimination and retaliation."

The matter finally went to trial on March 11, before what Romero describes as "an almost all-white jury" (one member was Asian). He says a "parade" of seven current Altitude workers and one former staffer portrayed him as "the worst sportscaster to ever work at Altitude," even though he'd been there for over a decade. But in the end, he feels that the jurors couldn't get past his two rehab stints. Romero points out that athletes of the sort he's covered for so long are frequently praised for getting assistance to overcome addiction, but "I don't think the jury was able to get past it for me."

Nonetheless, he says "I'm proud that I got help, because I'm a better person now — and I think there are a lot of other people who should go."

Today, Romero still has a TV gig, as the main voice of mixed-martial arts competitions staged by Sparta Sports & Entertainment, a feeder organization for better-known outfits such as Bellator MMA and UFC. But he's also considering opportunities outside the media.

"I have to respect the justice system," he allows. "But if I had to do it over again, I probably would. Because even though I lost in a court of law, there are so many things I won in my heart. And I got to tell my story. That's the most important thing."

Click to read Todd Romero v. Altitude Sports & Entertainment, et al., and the motion for summary judgment.