Comcast SportsNet California, the local television provider for all Sacramento Kings games, is making some big-time changes to their broadcast coverage. Former Kings guard Doug Christie is joining the pre-game and post-game telecast and James Ham of Cowbell Kingdom is taking over Bill Herenda's role as CSN's Kings Insider.

From the Press Release:

It's unsurprising to me to see Christie join the broadcast team as he has been participating in the Post-Game radio shows for a couple years now and he's well-liked by pretty much all Kings fans. Christie offered astute opinions on the radio and I'm sure his attitude and upbeat energy will translate well to the TV broadcast. Christie will join Guy Haberman and former teammate Bobby Jackson.

I'm also particularly excited about seeing James Ham get to cover the Kings on an even deeper level. James has been running the excellent Cowbell Kingdom for several years now after starting out as a commenter on this very website. At Cowbell Kingdom, he has proven to be a reliable and consistent contributor of original Kings news and reports. This move will only give him more access to the team to continue to provide exceptional coverage, which is good news for all Kings fans. We'll miss him at Cowbell Kingdom, but I'm glad that a broader audience will now be able to enjoy his quality reporting. Ham will be appearing on-air for CSN as well as helming the online site's "KingsTalk" section.

It's also nice to see that Comcast will be televising a pre-season game, something that hasn't happened in Sacramento for a long time. That game will be on Thursday Oct. 8th against the San Antonio Spurs.

All these changes and deeper coverage stem from Comcast's renewed long-term commitment to the Kings, having renewed their deal last year for 20 years and a reported $700 million.