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SALT LAKE CITY — Those Jazz fans with scissors in their hands will want to put them down.
Cord cutters will be disappointed by an announcement made Thursday, saying that an AT&T SportsNet streaming app will be available "Beginning in the 2017-18 season," in other words, not ready for the Jazz's first game Monday. That app, though, will require customers to log in with their cable or satellite subscription logins in order to watch Jazz games.
AT&T SportsNet is the new name of ROOT Sports, the channel with 100 percent of the rights to Jazz games on broadcast and digital, after its rebranding efforts this summer. The Jazz continue to work with AT&T SportsNet to make streaming happen, but the telecom-owned channel is ultimately responsible for the engineering and development of this service.
While efforts are being made for the games (and the channel) to appear on over-the-top streaming services like DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue and Sling, those will also not be ready for the beginning of the season and will be revealed even after the release of the app for cable and satellite subscribers. Jazz fans who don't live in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and portions of Nevada can stream games now using NBA League Pass, but there's not an answer currently for people in those markets.
Over the summer, the plan had been that streaming would be available to both subscribers and non-subscribers through different avenues in time for the beginning of the season. That solution apparently has not been implemented in time, and AT&T SportsNet has not returned multiple requests for comment or information.
Beyond the streaming plans, the Jazz announced other details about their broadcasting of games on AT&T SportsNet. Craig Bolerjack and Matt Harpring will still call a "majority of telecasts" for the Jazz, and when Harpring isn't available, Ron Boone will fill in as color commentator. Alema Harrington and Thurl Bailey will still host the pregame, halftime and postgame shows on TV. Kristen Kenney will start her second season as sideline reporter. The crew will televise 80 regular season games, the other two regular season games are exclusively on TNT. They're also broadcasting just two preseason games: Oct. 2 and Oct. 4 against the Sydney Kings and Maccabi Haifa.
On the radio side, David Locke and Boone will call the majority of games for 1280 The Zone (which also broadcasts on 97.5 FM as well as 1280 AM), save for when Boone needs to fill in on TV. Spencer Checketts and Britton Johnsen will host radio pre-game, halftime, and postgame shows.
A Spanish radio broadcast will also be available, primarily called by Nelson Moran on 1600 AM.
