Clayton Kershaw had one heck of an outing on Wednesday night. It was one of the most dominant pitching performances in MLB history. It would have been nice if most Dodgers fans in LA could have seen it.
According to the LA Times’ Joe Flint, Nielsen metrics say only 52,000 people in the LA market watched the Dodgers game on TV Wednesday night. The game drew just a 0.60 TV rating.
The problem is that an estimated 70 percent of households in the Los Angeles area do not have Time Warner Cable and therefore do not have access to watching the Dodgers on TV. Time Warner Cable owns the Dodgers’ TV rights and created a channel called SportsNet LA to air the games, but their rights fees for the channel are so high, other providers like DirecTV, Dish Network, Cox and Charter don’t carry it.
For most of LA, the team has been a non-entity this season. Most fans literally cannot watch the team on TV.
I can’t watch them and it’s frustrating. My mom, a lifelong Dodgers fan who rarely misses a chance to watch them on TV when she’s home, had no idea about Kershaw’s no-hitter until I called her in the 9th inning. Even Vin Scully is blacked out of the games.
Who will blink first in these negotiations? Tell TWC to lower the price; they’re asking for too much.
