With the Time Warner Cable – DirecTV dispute headed into its third season, television coverage of Dodgers spring training games will take a hit this year. Whereas the Dodgers aired 31 games last spring on SportsNet LA – the Dodgers regional sports network – there will be only 16 games aired on SNLA this spring.
The good news (relatively speaking) is that 16 games will also be aired on AM570 Sports LA – the Dodgers flagship radio station – including four that will not be carried on SNLA. The bad news is that this is also down significantly from last season. And while there are those who consider spring training games to be “meaningless games,” try convincing die-hard Dodger fans of this.
But regardless of the number of games to be televised on SNLA, roughly 60 percent of LA viewers are still unable to watch them because of the on-going TWC – DirecTV dispute. The consolation to this – albeit slight – is that every regular-season Dodgers game can be heard on AM570 Sports LA, with Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully simulcasting the first three innings of every game he calls on SportsNet LA – so there’s that.
Here is the complete spring training 2016 television and radio broadcast schedule:
To y’all in LA:
This TV situation really stinks. You’d think in 2 years grown men could come up with a compromise. My view, as an outsider who isn’t affected by this mess, is they could at least make a temporary peace for Vin’s last season. Nobody has to “give in”. They can just agree to do it as a show of respect to Vin. Of course, it’d be even better if they built on that to find a more permanent solution.
I’d be perfectly happy to boycott TWC and DTV in your support but I’m already boycotting TV in general. I get baseball via mlb.com.