Sports
7-Year Dodgers Blackout Finally Ends For Fans With DirectTV
When the Major League Baseball season finally restarts, thousands of AT&T and DirectTV customers will get to see games again after 7 years.
LOS ANGELES, CA — After seven years of blacking out the boys in blue, Spectrum announced a deal to air Dodger games on AT&T services, such as DirecTV, Wednesday. It's news diehard Dodgers fans have been waiting for years to hear – even through two World Series. But it comes just in time for the hold on the Major League Baseball season.
Spectrum announced Wednesday it has reached an agreement with AT&T to carry the SportsNet LA channel -- the home of most Dodger game telecasts. Southland residents who don't have Spectrum have been unable to watch Dodger games on their home tvs, essential missing out on some of the Dodgers' best seasons in decades. Many LA sports bars have been unable to show the games as well as the bitter feud over the SportsNet LA channel dragged on.
SportsNet LA has been available primarily on Spectrum cable for the past seven years, leaving Dodger fans who have other television services in the cold. The club reached a $8.35-billion television deal in January 2013 and granted Time Warner Cable exclusive marketing rights for the channel, according to the Los Angeles Times. And since then, most other carriers have been left in the cold.
Find out what's happening in Echo Park-Silver Lakefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Under the agreement announced Wednesday, SportsNet LA will now be available on DirecTV, U-Verse, AT&T TV and AT&T Now in Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii. Viewers with Frontier, Dish Network and Cox cable remain iced out.
The channel was made available on the services immediately -- but it's still unclear when the Dodgers will actually begin their season.
Find out what's happening in Echo Park-Silver Lakefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
"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 Now," said Stan Kasten, president/CEO of the Dodgers. "... We are eager to get this season started once it is deemed safe to do so everywhere."
City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.
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