It’s with Time-Warner, and terms won’t be announced till Thursday.
The Dodgers have agreed with Time Warner Cable on a new television contract that will provide the team with a channel of its own, according to two people familiar with the deal but not authorized to discuss it.
Time Warner Cable now has secured the television rights to the two most popular teams in Los Angeles — the Dodgers and the Lakers — within two years.
The Dodgers’ deal is expected to be finalized and announced Thursday. The team has not yet submitted the deal to Major League Baseball for approval, but the control of the channel is expected to rest with the Dodgers’ owners rather than with Time Warner.
Presumably it pays the team enough to cover its payroll.
In other equally welcome news, Sandy Koufax will return to Spring Training to work with the Dodgers’ pitchers.
Update: The TV deal has now been confirmed. There may be some differences with MLB as to how much of the money the Dodgers receive is subject to revenue sharing:
The new ownership group, which bought the team out of bankruptcy court in April 2012 for a record $2.1 billion, said it has created a company called American Media Productions that will start broadcasting Dodgers games in 2014 on a channel called SportsNet LA. Time Warner Cable, the largest carrier in the area, will be the network’s first distributor.
Although terms were not disclosed, the SportsBusiness Journal calls it a 25-year deal worth $7 billion.
“We concluded last year that the best way to give our fans what they want — more content and more Dodger baseball — was to launch our own network,” Dodgers chairman Mark Walter said in a statement. “The creation of AMP will provide substantial financial resources over the coming years for the Dodgers to build on their storied legacy and bring a world championship home to Los Angeles.”
The deal is subject to approval by Major League Baseball, and one baseball source privy to the negotiations told ESPN.com the team and the league could very well butt heads regarding exactly how much of the deal will be shared with other teams.
The other question yet to be answered is “how big a carriage fee will Time Warner pay to AMP for the rights to show the Dodgers’ games and other content and how much will Time Warner turn around and charge its mostly-captive subscribers?”
Mattingly spoke with Scott Rolen about joining the Dodgers as a backup third-baseman and bat off the bench. Rolen hasn’t spoken about playing or retiring yet this off-season.
Nice story on one of my favourite ex-dodgers Alex Cora
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130130&content_id=41256520&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb
Good for Cora and his team.
Less than a month away and it seems like time has been dragging…I’m thinking about attending my 1st spring training…Someone please wake me when it’s time
You old bear.
“Koufax returns to Dodgers” says the headline.
Wonder if just a tinge of fear flared for opposing teams reading that, before they realized what it actually meant. ;-])
“The Dodgers already loaded up–now they’re bringing KOUFAX back TOO?”
At 77, he might have a bit of trouble. But it wouldn’t be surprising if he still could get a few folks out, as long as his arm let him.
I never saw anything authoritative about this, but there was talk that years back he took the mound in spring training to face Garvey, Pedro G., Cey, and a few others and did well. Love to see video of that, if it happened. Course, so would we all.
This info should be good news for you Link since now they won’t be able to black you out
I don’t live in CA so I don’t care what cable company shows Dodgers games. I am glad to see that Sandy Koufax will be back with the team though. It will certainly be helpful to the pitching staff.
McCourt may not have done many things right, but he did help to mend fences with Koufax. Koufax certainly deserves the respect and appreciation of the organization.
Finally, the all time face of the franchise returns. Yea!!