The Dodgers are looking to add the sixth regional sports network to the Los Angeles market with their own station, created by the forthcoming agreement with Time Warner Cable for its television rights. TWC is supposedly getting ready to shell out between $7 billion and $8 billion over a 20-year period, giving the Dodgers the influx of cash they anticipated when they doubled their payroll during the 2012 season and early off-season, the LA Times says.
In other great Dodgers news, one of the greatest pitchers of all time is rejoining the team. USA Today reports that MLB Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax is back with the organization as an special advisor and consultant to Dodger chairman Mark Walter. Koufax's career was shortened by injury, but he was one of the most dominant starters of all time in his days wearing Dodger blue. Koufax had stayed away from the Dodgers under each of the previous two ownership groups, last being affiliated with the team in 1989.
Before Frank McCourt owned the Dodgers, they were owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (owners of FOX Broadcasting Company). McCourt and his ex-wife had a messy divorce process that led him to sell the team to the Guggenheim Partners in 2012. Guggenheim has two prominent sports figures as part of its management for the organization: former Los Angeles Lakers point guard Magic Johnson and Stan Kasten, who was the president of the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals in past baseball jobs.
FOX will pay $39 million to LA to broadcast Dodgers games in 2013.
Earlier this off-season, FOX bought a share of the Yes Network (owned by the New York Yankees), which will most likely place more Yankees games on the national game of the week broadcast FOX runs each Saturday. It also may end up blacking out some Yanks games on Yes in favor of the national station.
ESPN, TBS and FOX all reached contract extensions with Major League Baseball as a whole within the past six months, meaning the three networks will continue to broadcast games with expanded coverage because of the revised wildcard playoff system.
The large television rights contracts have given Major League Baseball teams and the league itself an even more reliable source of revenue than in past years. The new deals negotiated for the whole league will add about $25 million to each team's income, as reported by SB Nation.
The TV rights deals are especially lucrative for large market teams, because only a percentage of the money from them is counted toward baseball's revenue sharing structure. In addition, the larger markets tend to command more money for rights fees, so it makes it easier for the rich teams to get richer. Despite almost a $200 million difference on opposite sides of the team salary spectrum in 2012 (the Miami Marlins at $33 million and the Dodgers above the $200 million mark), Major League Baseball has had frequent parity in its World Series winners. Since 2001, only three teams have had multiple championships, with none of them winning in consecutive years.