For Dodgers fans in L.A. without Time Warner Cable, going to see a game live has been the only way to catch a game. (photo: Atwater Village Newbie)
It’s no secret that Time Warner Cable hates Dodgers fans. If they liked them, the cable company would figure out a way that more than 30% of people in L.A. could actually watch the games on TV. But with the team doing so well right now (and, more importantly, with regulators in D.C. asking questions about how the Dodgers disaster relates to the Comcast merger), TWC has decided that the final few games of the season will be available to anyone with an antenna.
According to the L.A. Times, the last six Dodgers games of the season will be broadcast on KDOC-TV in Orange County.
That means fans without access to the little-seen SportsNet LA channel (and who haven’t figured out that you can use a proxy server or an affordable DNS-spoofing service to get around MLB.tv’s location-based blackouts) will get to watch their team play the cross-state rivals (and potential playoff contenders), the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 22, 23, 24, followed by a three-game series with the Colorado Rockies (Sept. 26-28) that closes out the regular season.
Not only is KDOC available free over-the-air to viewers in the L.A. area, it’s also carried by all cable and satellite companies in the region.
This is just one of several regional sports disputes that has left large swaths of sports fans without access to their hometown favorites.
Here in Philadelphia, the local Comcast SportsNet channel carries the overwhelming majority of the Phillies, Flyers, and 76ers. But this channel is not available to the large number of subscribers of Dish or DirecTV service. Comcast says it has made the station available to these providers, but sources have repeatedly told Consumerist that Comcast is demanding a rate that is far out of proportion to what should be paid for a regional sports channel.
We’re not quite sure what’s going on in Houston, where CSN Houston filed for bankruptcy barely a year after launching. The channel, jointly owned by Comcast, the Houston Astros and Houston Rockets, was supposed to be sold to AT&T and DirecTV, though there have been recent rumblings that this deal is not going very well and may fall apart.
Regardless, a large number of sports fans in the Houston area are still unable to watch Astros and Rockets games until CSN Houston ownership is ironed out.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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