While the 2020 season remains paused, many Dodgers fans can now at least look forward to catching their team in action when MLB resumes play. An agreement has at long last been reached that will bring Dodgers games back to many televisions in Southern California, as Ramona Shelburne of ESPN reports (Twitter link) and has now been announced.
The 2013 creation of the Spectrum SportsNet LA network — jointly owned by the Dodgers and Charter Communications — promised more content, but came with a catch. Carriage fees agreements were not forthcoming between SportsNet LA and TV providers such as Direct TV and Dish Network. That left an effective blackout for large swaths of the market.
Now, SportsNet LA has a deal in place with AT&T to carry Dodgers games on Direct TV and other AT&T-owned outlets. Other major providers still don’t have deals in place with SportsNet LA, so the situation hasn’t yet improved for all fans. But many will now be able to watch games as before. And perhaps this agreement is cause for optimism that bargains can be struck with the other providers as well.
The timing is obviously interesting, with the Dodgers staring at a major loss of revenue in 2020. With an increasing likelihood that MLB will stage contests without fans for at least part of a truncated season, it’s all the more important for the team to deliver its media content to fans. Whether the coronavirus pandemic specifically prompted this agreement isn’t known. No doubt we’ll learn more as further details emerge.
About damn time!
Something good comes out of this. Happy for those that have missed out, time to unsubscribe your VPNs and all the illegal stuff you’ve paid for LOL
there are still mlb tv blackouts to bypass.
Heard the mlb is working on that with mlbtv as well
That’s a tough one. In-market broadcasting rights are owned by companies that paid a lot of money for them.
I pay for MLBtv every year but I still need my VPN and illegal streams for local games. That and foreign Netflix content.
Haha too late we all had to figure out how to stream them illegally and now we’re never going back
You sound rather proud of stealing… that’s an interesting thing to be proud about
I don’t know about stealing…the vast majority of us signed up for MLB TV and then use VPN to go around the restrictions. So we paid for the services.
When you acknowledge your are illegally accessing something, you are acknowledging you are not paying for it, that is stealing.
Very proud…. I was a willing and able customer ,and they screwed us bad- Yes it feels good to watch my Dodgers and I will continue to stream them for free as a snub to them for being jerks for so many years- Whats your take? Run back with open arms and thank them?
What a terrible take
My take is you pay for things/services you make use of, not a complicated concept
And whats your stance on the avg Los Angeles area fan not being able to see their team play for years on the television despite paying for Mlb package at a pretty penny?
I honestly don’t know enough about the situation to have an educated opinion.
They steal Dodger games from us, we steal dodger games from them.
Amen brotha
WOW! How 21st century. Theft is ok because…. well, just because.
Better situation? Yes
Good situation? No!
If the MLB is honestly interested in expanding the fanbase, work out deals to run all the Dodgers and Angels games locally like they used to on KTLA and KCAL. Give the fans easy access to the games!
These cable deals, while injecting short term money, are destroying the longterm viability of the sport. People have to search out a way to watch the sport, and often have to spend additional money, instead of having the game thrust into everyones home on a near daily basis. Its shrinking the fanbase of the game
Attendance is down 10% from the peak but revenue and TV viewership are up drastically. MLB will be fine.
TV ratings are not up much. They’ve maybe gone up a little from recent low points, but they are down dramatically from a decade or two ago.
The impact can be seen most strikingly in the numbers for the World Series. The last 10 years have seen the only times in history those numbers have dropped under 15 million mark, and it has been under 15 million in 7 of those last 10 years!
The Allstar game is seeing similar, where an average of 22 million viewers to end the 90s, and numbers never falling under 12 million prior to 2005, have now shrunk to numbers as low as 8-9 million recently, with each year seeing a new low
So as the population of the country grows, we are seeing fewer and fewer people watching the game; be it in person or on tv. That includes even its biggest stages in staggering numbers
And worse yet, it is the youth demographic that especially has disappeared from the viewership, meaning growth can not be expected moving forward. We are losing entire generations of fans for the future
It is not surprising though, when those youth are not growing up on the game because the game is not accessible to them – it’s behind paywalls, where only existing fans with money to burn are searching it out to watch
Great Take darkstar
Thats because more and more people are moving away from Cable TV. Those TV ratings are not including streaming from other platforms, which the younger generation has moved to. People have way more options to watch Baseball now than they had 10 years ago.
Thank you
But the change really can not be understated, and it can be spotted in aspects other than just viewership.
Look at video games. At their peak from 1997-1998, there were 24 baseball video games released. 24! Think of how popular a sport has to be to sustain 12 video games a year.
Now? There are just 2 each year, with one being available exclusively on the playstation platform.
Kids especially just have very few ways to easily access the game, and the games popularity is plummeting because of it. The effects of it all will especially start hitting hard over the next 10-20 years, as older diehards continue to die off.
Manfred obviously recognizes the issue too, and is desperate to try to correct it. Problem is, he is trying to address it in all the wrong ways. We need more accessibility, fast
KYLA and KCAL never showed all the Dodger games. Never!
I’m having hard time finding specific numbers, but yes, they used to air at least a third to half of the games. Considering there are 162 games, you are talking a ton of broadcasts each season. And with 2 teams in the market, there were few days where baseball was not on
The Dodgers were on KTLA in 2019. 5 home games bub.
It’s crazy it took this long to get right. It’s past time to end all blackouts. People who want to watch in the market will find a way, legal or otherwise.
Teams like the Dodgers are the problem. They’re too greedy to make sensible agreements on regional sports fees, hence the blackouts.
Sensible is in the eyes of the beholder. Who’s to say what is sensible? What the tv providers want to pay? Is that your definition of sensible?
Well, I would say anytime you blackout games to over 70% of your fan base is not sensible.
Another tired jab at the west coast. Who was it that said, you are entitled to not just an opinion, but an informed opinion. .
Lmfao. Blame the team offered a multi billion dollar deal-
not the company offered them all that many AND that refused to negotiate with the other companies unless it was on their terms AND did all the negotiating after closing the deal
Yeah blame the dodgers. Sure you’d turn that check down too bud
Got to keep in mind these providers are competitors. Cooperation doesn’t exactly come naturally. We don’t really know who refused to negotiate. All we know is at one point TWC made an offer to Direct at a lower cost and Direct turned it down. Since then they’d been pointing their fingers at each other, at least until AT&T bought Direct.
Use your noggin. The games aren’t widespread, despite high demand for viewers. That should tell you it’s the team not willing to negotiate or compromise. The Dodgers decided to go this route for a reason. More $$$$.
The team has no control over whether other carriers are willing to pay for a product. Ultimately ATT decided to pay enough to acquire the content. Others may or may not also agree to pony up. That’s how supply and demand works. It’s a 25 year contract. Cable providers were eventually going to cave.
Sorry, I don’t buy that. The Dodgers have a loyal fanbase. The fact that I ( a White Sox fan living in the northeast) can catch more Dodgers games than a local is just unacceptable. Supply and demand isn’t the issue. Teams have a responsibility to their fans and the municipalities they depend on for revenue.
Says who and let me assure you the Dodgers make plenty of money outside of LA County.
Nobody called it acceptable but what I think you don’t understand is that once a team sells their in-market broadcasting rights it’s up to the buyer of those rights to deal with the providers. The out of market rights belong to MLB.
Memo to Orioles (especially) and Nationals. Fix the MASN deal.
No one watches the Nats but lots of people watch the O’s.
Not anymore.
I was going to add the same thing @920kodiak! No streaming options, and no local broadcast (other than national games) for the Orioles and Nats! Which means if you are an Orioles fan, well, let’s just say not many national games on these days lol. But I am still a fan! I get MASN on DirecTV, yet I can’t go upstairs and watch the game on my iPad! Our daughter and son in law are cord cutters, as many are – there is no way for them to even see an Orioles game. MLB won’t do anything as MASN owns the rights in most of the Mid Atlantic. How all this is destroying the game to make future fans when most under 35 can’t even watch a game! The Dodgers, Orioles and Nats are the only teams in this situation.
Mlb TV has a streaming service with a 1 team package, if it’s not broadcasted on MASN you should get it on their. Also cut the cord u can get streaming for over half the price of DirecTV they are awful. Maybe wait two or three years since it’s the O’s, Better than the Tigers I guess.
MLB.TV has blackout rules, so living in the MASN-Orioles-Nationals territory, even though I subscribe to MLB.TV I can’t get the local team(s) (in this case Orioles/Nationals on any package, sadly. I would happily use MLB.TV every year if I could get Orioles games within local market. That’s what I meant above when I said MLB won’t broadcast as the rights are owned by MASN.
As a Spectrum customer and Angels fan that has no choice but to pay the SportsNet LA fee, does this mean my bill will go down a few bucks now because AT&T customers are going to help cover some of the cost of this network? I know the answer is no.
that’s a lot of money to watch reruns
April Fool’s probably
If I remember the numbers right, Direct is about 30% of the LA media market. Added to the existing viewership of around 50% this should bring the total viewership for the Dodgers up to around 80%.
Woohoo. I can finally dump spectrum and their crap tv service.
Dam – I have Dish network! Still SOL!
Do they not have Comcast in LA?
they do but it isn’t very widespread.
If I remember right TWC (now Spectrum) made a deal with Comcast to carry SportsNetLA a few years ago, but it didn’t have a lot of impact on viewership.
Looks to me like they are really planning on playing without fans. Better to get some revenue, at least ad revenue, than no revenue.
They’ll pull that deal if baseball returns to normal next year. So the fans will likely never experience it.
Let me just roll my red mat out for them and welcome them back with open arms….
Nah, ill just continue streaming them as a big F U for everything they have done to La Basin residents the past couple years
Google Fiber in the future same with CCI.
All it took was a worldwide pandemic for this to get solved!
Clearly, this sad state of affairs shows how much Kasten et al value Dodger fans. Six years have gone by and many have missed enumerable historic moments as well as watching Kershaw in his prime. Not sure why Dodgers’ have gotten a pass here? Local radio failed to cover it much, perhaps due to pressure by on them by Dodger organization who pays for advertising? It has made it tough to be a Dodger fan. I really cannot blame those who were left to figure it out on their own. Shame on Kasten.
Lol direct tv is garbage ever since at&t bought them. Of course that’s the service they come to an agreement with
My old friend passed away from ALS in 2016. He had been a Dodger season ticket holder for decades. Being unable to travel to games, his only recourse was to follow games on TV and/or radio. Unfortunately, there were no televised. Dodger games. We talked about his lifelong love of Dodgers, but his feelings about the organization changed when he considered the way they treated their fans in LA area. He was a bit bitter. Being from the Bay Area, virtually all Giant games are televised on Comcast. It was hard for me to envision Dodger fans NOT being able to see games most nights like I could. Business and GREED fixed that. Well, things change. A new TV Contract has been reached . I’m writing this to my old friend, to simply say the Dodgers have finally get fixed the curse. Seven straight NL West Titles, but no World Series ring. Wasn’t that back in 1989? I’d say that is enough punishment for a lifetime. I’m hoping you’ve gone back to supporting the Bums up there, and wish them luck when play resumes. As a Giants fan I’m pretty satisfied with , but would love the Dodgers to finally win one for my old pard in my lifetime. Maybe this is the year. To Dan; let’s play ball. ⚾️