The season has not started by millions of baseball fans will be shut out.
NY Post reports the continuing saga of sports teams and cable operators over team license fees.
Cable operators are winning.
The head butt over broadcast rights fees continues at the start of
the season by big carriage standoffs for regional sports
networks in New York and Los Angeles.
The LA Times reports that Time Warner Cable sweetened its deal for SportsNet LA, the exclusive TV home of the Dodgers, but no deal has been come to pass.
The cable provider, which already cut the channel’s price by 30
percent for one year, offered pay-TV providers a new six-year deal to
carry the regional sports net.
The first year would be at the lower $3.50-a-month introductory price
with the rate ticking up in subsequent years, according to the LA
Times, citing a source close to the talks.
So far, AT&T’s DirecTV and other pay-TV operators in Southern
California have not responded to the latest offer, which means some 3
million homes in Southern California will miss out on Dodgers games for a
third straight season.
The billion dollar Dodger cable network deal was based upon full coverage of the LA area. That has not happened, and it makes future megachannel deals unlikely for teams, including the Cubs.
The same situation is playing out in the New York area.
YES, which airs Yankees games, has been blacked out on Comcast since
November amid a carriage dispute with the network’s majority owner, 21st
Century Fox.
The blackout affects about 900,000 Comcast subscribers who live in New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
Under its old contract, Comcast was guaranteed the lowest price
because of a so-called “most favored nation” clause. It wants to
continue that even though it lost its title as the biggest pay-TV
provider to the combined AT&T- DirecTV.
