Spectrum SportsNet LA
The channel, which launched on February 25, 2014, was the result of a 25-year deal with Time Warner Cable reached in January 2013, valued at $8.35 billion, succeeding Prime Ticket as the regional rights holder for the team.
[2] On January 28, the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable signed a 25-year broadcast agreement valued at $8.35 billion,[3] subject to the approval of Major League Baseball, which would see the establishment of a new channel known as SportsNet LA.
[5] The initial program lineup included: As part of cutbacks across TWC's Los Angeles regional sports networks due to low viewership, Larry King at Bat and Dodgers Clubhouse were cancelled in September 2015.
ESPN’s Jessica Mendoza and Eric Karros, a colleague of Davis at Fox, joined SportsNet LA in 2022 as alternate color commentators.
Willis also fills-in for Hershiser on select road games, and Mota is also part of the Dodgers’ Spanish language broadcast team on radio.
From SportsNet LA's inaugural season through 2016, Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully retained his traditional role as solo commentator for Dodgers games in California and Arizona.
Steiner continues to serve as an alternate play-by-play announcer if Davis is unable to work a game due to a Fox Sports assignment.
For the 2014 season, SportsNet LA began to carry an expanded schedule of dedicated Spanish-language broadcasts of Dodgers games on a special feed of the network.
[31] Early on, DirecTV offered to carry the channel on an "a la carte" basis, rather than part of a package, at whatever monthly fee TWC set.
[36] In addition, some industry observers believed that Comcast, which was trying to acquire Time Warner Cable, would write off losses on the Dodgers' contract and offer distributors a better deal.
As a result, Charter added SportsNet LA on June 9, making the network available to nearly 300,000 additional subscribers in the Los Angeles region.
[41][42] In March 2016, TWC attempted to break the stalemate by reducing the fee for the upcoming season by about 30 percent: about $3.50 per household, according to an estimate by the analyst firm SNL Kagan.
Midway through the channel's 2014 inaugural season, Los Angeles Times business reporter Joe Flint called the standoff a potentially "definitive moment for the world of sports programming, as the industry realizes that exorbitantly priced television deals can backfire.
"[3] Four years later, Kagen sports analyst Adam Gajo said that the carriage dispute challenged the assumption that subscribers would absorb almost any cost to see their teams play.
He called SportsNet LA a "turning point” for teams, forcing them to consider whether higher revenues from distributors might sacrifice the next generation of fans.
[46] In its first two baseball seasons, Time Warner Cable lost more than $100 million a year on SportsNet LA due to the channel's limited distribution.
[47] In a bid to increase viewership, SportsNet LA began to syndicate selected Dodgers games to broadcast television stations.
[51] On November 2, 2016, the United States Department of Justice sued DirecTV and its corporate successor, AT&T Inc., alleging the company colluded with its competitors to prevent SportsNet LA from being carried more widely.
[53] The DOJ alleged that DirecTV had "unlawfully exchanged competitively-sensitive information" with AT&T (prior to its acquisition of DirecTV), Charter, and Cox Communications surrounding their negotiations and plans to carry SportsNet LA, in order to "obtain bargaining leverage and to reduce the risk that they would lose subscribers if they decided not to carry the channel but a competitor chose to do so.
