It's now only a matter of time as to when NBC Sports Group formally announces the closure of NBCSNW as it was originally formed to broadcast Trail Blazers games in the first place. As for ROOT Sports NW, they'll now have all the NW teams with the exception of the Sounders.
I took a look at this issue, and it appears that all the RSNs can place their teams on OTT with existing infrastructure.
We all know that Sinclair plans on launching OTT for Bally's Sports
NBC has NBC Sports Gold & Peacock
AT&T has BR Live
The Independent RSNs can possibly add a standalone option to their existing TVE platforms.
Here we go again:
DirecTV and AT&T TV Could Lose Cox-Owned Locals Next Week
Although the article lists the legacy Cox stations, it also appears that the former NWB stations could be yanked as well. As you remember, NWB was in a prolonged fight with AT&T in 2019 just before the Cox merger.
Suggestion: One of the Ion Plus licenses I'd like to see sold would be the WDPX, PSIP 58, license in Boston to NBCU which will finally give WBTS a full power home and the must carry privileges that come with it.
Here's how I see it working:
Scripps sells the WDPX license to NBCU who, in turn, change the callsign to WBTS and move it to WNEU's spectrum, RF29.
NBCU either sells, cancels, or donates, to WGBH, the current WBTS-CD license.
I wonder whether Univision would be willing to end the deal early in several markets. One market I see would be Washington, DC where Univision hosts Nexstar on RF15 as potentially clearing Grit and Bounce could make room for WDVM move into DC. Also, the other Scripps subnets air in DC on WRZB-LD and should move to WPXW in the spring.