The Dodgers’ TV rights deal with Time Warner Cable “has hit a major-league snag,” according to Josh Kosman of the N.Y. POST. Sources said that Guggenheim Partners and other team owners “could lose as much as” $1B of the money from TWC to MLB’s revenue-sharing plan “because of the way the deal is structured.” A source said that TWC is "guaranteeing” its new RSN will get “$4 a month from every eligible Los Angeles-area household -- whether its pay-TV provider carries the new RSN or not.” Sources said that MLB may treat that money “more like cash from a stadium naming-rights deal and force the Dodgers to share it with the other 29 MLB clubs.” Guggenheim “hasn’t submitted the contract” to MLB’s N.Y. office “because it fears baseball will rule that part of the ... cash must be shared.” A source said, “This is highway robbery. Nothing from the media side is supposed to go into revenue sharing” (N.Y. POST, 3/6).
OPEN TO DEBATE: In San Diego, Matthew Hall noted the City Council's Rules & Economic Development Committee has "invited representatives" from FS San Diego and TWC to a special meeting on March 14 to discuss distribution of Padres games. It will be the "first public hearing of its kind” a year into an impasse that affected about 40% of the county last season (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 3/5).
