sportsnet la

If you want to watch every Dodgers game in 2026, you’ll likely need access to all of these outlets: SportsNet LA, Fox, ESPN, NBC, Peacock and Apple TV.

That is not, shall we say, fan-friendly.

Baseball’s holy grail is this: One place to watch your team, and every team, wherever you are. One price. No blackouts. No need to decide whether to pay up for a subscription to an outlet you may never watch after the game ends.

Rob Manfred, baseball’s commissioner, does not need to persuade fans about this. He does need to persuade the owners of all 30 teams about this.

Since Manfred would like to have this “All the Teams, All The Time” outlet up and running in 2029, he needs to start lining up votes among the owners. Manfred has talked about this goal for years, and I asked him if he can say this is really going to happen.

“I think that there is a lot of acceptance within the industry that, given what’s happened within the media environment, we need to be more national,” Manfred told me before the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies met Monday at Citizens Bank Park.

“The idea of centralizing, and getting more games available on national platforms, is really appealing to people. Now, we’ve got some cards to play, still. But I remain optimistic that it can happen.”

So does Stan Kasten, the president of the Dodgers.

“We are supportive of the notion of all fans anywhere being able to watch any game, and doing away with blackouts,” Kasten said. “That takes a lot of steps, and every team has a different situation.

“We have a long way to go, but the goal is an admirable one, one I think all fans will benefit from, and that is what is most important.”

This all sounds lovely so far. But the Dodgers are not about to unconditionally surrender what fans outside Los Angeles consider their greatest competitive advantage: money, and lots of it.

The Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers are on course to meet in the National League Championship Series. The Brewers make about $35 million in local television revenue this year, according to Sports Business Journal.

The Dodgers make about 10 times that much in rights fees this year from Charter Communications, the parent company of Spectrum — and that annual rights fee will top $500 million by the end of the Charter contract in 2038. And there’s more: the Dodgers also own SportsNet LA.

If the 30 teams pooled their broadcast rights, Manfred believes they could generate interest not only from traditional outlets but from streamers such as Apple, Peacock, Paramount and Netflix. League officials believe the exclusivity of one package would generate more collective revenue than the combination of 30 individual team deals.

In theory, then, the Brewers would get significantly more than $35 million per year if the teams split the pot evenly. The Dodgers would get less, and probably much less. So would Manfred just lean on the Dodgers to go along for the good of the game?

“I don’t think you can make a change like this based on people saying this is for the good of the game,” Manfred said. “I think you make a change like this by people realizing who the buyers are, what they want to buy, and by packaging up a set of changes that make it kind of closer to an economic wash.”

Meaning cash-neutral for teams like the Dodgers — and the New York teams, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs — still reeling in big bucks amid the collapse of regional sports networks outside large markets?

“Yeah, and there are a whole lot of ways to get there,” Manfred said.

He did not lay out his menu of options, but the first one is clear. Collective bargaining negotiations are scheduled to start next year, with the growing likelihood of a lockout after the 2026 season.

If owners can push through a salary cap — a cap that the players’ union insists will remain — then small-market owners could be guaranteed players would receive a guaranteed but limited percentage of league revenue. That cost certainty, coupled with the potential of increased revenue from a 30-team broadcast package, probably would win over small-market owners.

And that could be critical, because those owners currently make a fair amount of money from revenue sharing, under which teams are assessed a percentage of such money as ticket sales, concession sales and local media revenue. That money is pooled and shared equally for now, but Manfred could offer the Dodgers and other financial behemoths a chance to keep more of — or all of — that money for themselves.

The league also could offer to buy out SportsNet LA and other such channels, meaning more money for the Dodgers. And, although the Dodgers under current ownership do not appear interested in a salary cap, a cap would decrease player spending and thus increase team profits.

A wild card: With Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki and Hyeseong Kim on their roster, the Dodgers could ask for greater revenue from international broadcast rights, which are now shared equally among teams.

Those are a lot of balls for Manfred to juggle. Kasten adamantly declined to say what might work for the Dodgers.

“You’re delving into areas that are way too premature for me to discuss, other than for me to tell you we agree with the goal,” he said. “The goal is a good one, and we hope baseball can get there.”

Once upon a time, sports fans wanted freedom of choice. Why pay for dozens — or perhaps hundreds — of television channels when all you wanted to do was to see your favorite teams play?

The cable era is in its sunset. Streaming is all the rage. No longer need you pay for channels that feature news, movies, cooking and gardening in order to watch the home team.

For sports fans, this has become an expensive mess, too.

The Dodgers require one subscription. The Lakers require another. The Angels, Kings and Clippers require another. The Galaxy and LAFC require another. The Ducks require another — although theirs is free for now.

Truth be told, the Dodgers and Lakers run L.A. The most valuable sports broadcasting property in town could be one that carries the Dodgers and Lakers.

For many fans in Los Angeles, that might represent freedom of choice: the one and only must-have sports subscription.

Could that future — one broadcast channel and one streaming app for the Dodgers and Lakers — become reality now that Mark Walter, the controlling owner of the Dodgers, is the new controlling owner of the Lakers? Walter hasn’t yet talked publicly about the Lakers deal, so we floated the idea by sports business insiders.

The Lakers are on Spectrum SportsNet. The Dodgers are on SportsNet LA. Who owns those channels?

Charter Communications, the parent company of Spectrum, owns SportsNet. The Dodgers, through an affiliated company, own SportsNet LA, although Charter operates it and pays the team a rights fee every year, just as it does with the Lakers.

Can Charter walk away from the Lakers deal because of the ownership change?

No.

Could Walter buy out Charter and put the Dodgers and Lakers on the same channel?

In theory, yes. Charter probably would give him the Lakers’ channel for free.

In reality? That appears unlikely any time soon. Walter didn’t get to be a billionaire by turning down half a billion dollars every year.

Go on.

When Charter’s predecessor, Time Warner Cable, launched the channels for the Lakers in 2012 and the Dodgers in 2014, cable and satellite channels were the way most fans watched their home teams. And, because cable and satellite packages required subscribers to pay for 100 channels even if they only watched five, those cooking and gardening enthusiasts helped enrich all those teams.

Fast forward to today: Nielsen reported that in May — for the first time — more Americans watched television via streaming than via broadcast and cable combined. This so-called “cord cutting” has turned the ownership of most sports channels from an asset to a liability, and many operators have either gone out of business or forced teams to take nine-figure hits to their rights fees.

What does this have to do with whether I can watch the Dodgers and Lakers on one channel?

The Dodgers’ channel and the Lakers’ channel each lose money. Walter would choose between acquiring a money-losing Lakers channel or keeping intact the two Charter deals that pay the Dodgers and Lakers more than $500 million combined each year. No team in baseball makes as much money from local television as the Dodgers, and no team in basketball makes as much money from local television as the Lakers.

The Lakers’ deal runs through 2032. The Dodgers’ deal runs through 2038.

Why are those dates important?

While other teams are experimenting with various combinations of cable, satellite, streaming and even free TV, the Lakers and Dodgers can cash in on guaranteed income and let those other teams be the guinea pigs for learning what works and what does not work in the new media world.

Major League Baseball would like to sell a national streaming package in 2028 — one spot to watch your team from wherever you are, with no blackouts — and the NBA figures to explore that option, too. That gives the Dodgers and Lakers a fairly long runway to see what might be best for them, including whether to retain their streaming rights or contribute them to a league package — and what they would require in order to do so.

Might a joint Dodgers-Lakers channel be a long-term solution?

It could be. With the NBA joining MLB in making postseason broadcasts entirely national, the calendar would align nicely: April to September for the Dodgers, October to April for the Lakers. Behind the scenes, one staff could largely replace two.

The time for the single-team sports channel has come and largely gone. The economics are poor, and the enthusiasm for 24-7, all-access coverage of one team has dissipated into the reality that most fans just want to watch the game.

How about Walter adding teams?

Nothing is impossible. Ted Leonsis, who owns the NHL’s Washington Capitals, NBA’s Washington Wizards and WNBA’s Washington Mystics, says the key to sports success could be an ownership bundle: own multiple teams, own the venues in which they play and own the platforms on which fans view their games.

Walter’s investments now include the Dodgers, Lakers and Sparks. SportsNet also airs the Sparks.

In 2012, Walter and his partners looked into buying AEG, which owns the Kings, the Galaxy and Crypto.comArena. AEG owner Philip Anschutz opted not to sell then, but Walter could renew that pursuit and, if successful, would control the two venues and four teams that call downtown L.A. home.