When the 2020 Major League Baseball season will begin remains unclear, but once Opening Day does arrive, Los Angeles Dodgers fans who subscribe to AT&T and its subsidiaries, including DirecTV, will have access to SportsNet LA. The carriage agreement ends a stalemate that was entering a seventh season.
“This agreement underscores our commitment to provide all Dodgers fans the opportunity to enjoy our award-winning programming and live game coverage,” said Dan Finnerty, senior vice president of Spectrum Networks.
“Working together with AT&T, we were able to reach an agreement to offer the region’s most popular teams to local fans across AT&T’s video platforms.”
In addition to DirecTV, the agreement between AT&T and Spectrum Networks brings SportsNet LA to AT&T TV, U-verse TV and AT&T TV NOW customers in Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii.
SportsNet LA is currently available to DirecTV customers on channel 690. U-verse TV customers with the U-100 and above packages and U200 Latino and above packages can watch on channel 780 (SD) and 1780 (HD).
“As anxious as we all are for the ongoing pandemic to end and for the 2020 season to begin, we now have even more reason to be excited because this agreement will make Dodger baseball games and programming available for our fans on Spectrum, AT&T TV, DIRECTV, U-verse TV, and AT&T TV NOW,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said.
“I want to thank AT&T and Spectrum Networks for coming together on this agreement. We are eager to get this season started once it is deemed safe to do so everywhere.”
Launched for the start of the 2014 season, the Dodgers’ exclusive network faced constant pushback from pay-TV providers. There was hope a merger between AT&T-DirecTV would signal an end to the impasse, but it carried on.
In April 2016, Congresswoman Janice Hahn of the 44th district in California wrote letters to TWC and AT&T requesting a joint meeting in effort to find a resolution. DirecTV rejected Hahn’s request.
In November of that same year, the United States justice department filed a lawsuit against AT&T-DirecTV, alleging they were the ringleaders in colluding against Spectrum and distribution of SportsNet LA. AT&T reached a settlement with the justice department in March 2017, and it did not include a mandate to carry the network.
As some fans were left without access to SportsNet LA, they regularly began to simulcast several games on KTLA 5, including last season for a fourth consecutive year.
The Dodgers setting franchise records during the 2019 regular season extended to their TV network, as SportsNet LA recorded their highest-ever ratings with a +2% increase in household rating (1.77 vs. 1.73) from a year ago.
The network additionally registered a +10% increase in A25-54 rating (0.79 vs. 0.72) and a +3% increase in viewers (136,976 vs. 132,626). Postgame airings of “Access SportsNet: Dodgers” recorded a +6% year-over-year increase in A25-54 rating (0.36 vs. 0.34) for the 2019 season.
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