With Spring Training around the corner, it serves as another unfortunate reminder Time Warner Cable’s SportsNet LA isn’t yet fully distributed across the greater Los Angeles area.
While TWC managed to strike deals with Bright House Networks and Charter Communications, AT&T U-verse, Dish Network and DirecTV are among the providers who continue to hold out on adding the exclusive home of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
As the Dodgers and TWC continue to fight public perception they are solely to blame for the impasse, the hope remains once Charter’s proposed acquisition of TWC is approved, more distribution deals will fall into place.
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred expressed great concern last November over the ongoing blackout and said he was hopeful a resolution would be reached prior to the 2016 regular season beginning.
Manfred recently addressed the SportsNet LA impasse once more, explaining the league is attempting to help foster a solution despite not being directly involved, according to a Q&A with Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports:
What is preventing you at this point from stepping in with Los Angeles and allowing everyone there to watch Vin Scully in his final season?
The distribution problem in L.A. is the product of a negotiation at a table where we don’t have a seat. You can rest assured that we are continuing to have dialogue with the Dodgers, who desperately want that distribution. And also with distributors that we have relationships with in order to get that resolved.
It was reported last October that TWC Sports president David B. Rone was leaving the company amid increasing pressure to gain wider distribution of SportsNet LA. Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten has regularly stated the organization is tirelessly working behind the scenes to reach a solution.
There figures to be added motivation and pressure to get carriage agreements in place given this season is expected to be Vin Scully’s final as broadcaster.
