Charter Communications has indeed freed its L.A. Dodgers regional sports network, SportsNet LA, from its pay TV shackles, but there's a big catch.
Only Charter One customers — those who bundle Spectrum-branded home internet and mobile services through this promotion — can access Dodgers games that are not nationally televised without a pay TV subscription.
Everyone else who wants to follow the Dodgers and their $700-million signee, Shohei Ohtani, needs to get linear video subscription.
Starting with Wednesday's Major League Baseball 2024 season opener from Seoul, Korea, a 5-2 Dodgers victory over the San Diego Padres, Spectrum One customers could watch the game for free via this MLB.tv link or the MLB app.
Charter said last July that it planned "to launch a direct-to-consumer (DTC) alternative for its own Regional Sports Networks (RSNs), Spectrum SportsNet and Spectrum SportsNet LA, which will be made available to all affiliate subscribers for free."
Based on the term "direct-to-consumer," the assumption was that the Lakers' SportsNet and the Dodgers' SportsNet LA would both be offered as standalone streaming services, available to Southern Californians sans pay TV.
And last October, Charter launched a $19.99-a-month direct-to-consumer iteration of sibling RSN Spectrum SportsNet, allowing any and all Southern California-area NBA fans — with or without a pay TV subscription — to stream non-nationally televised Lakers games via NBA.com or the NBA app.
But beyond Spectrum One and Spectrum TV subscribers, in order to see more than 140 regular season Dodgers games on television, local fans will still need a DirecTV or Cox Communications linear pay TV bundle that includes SportsNet LA in it.
SportsNet LA was formed 11 years ago on the back of a 25-year, $8.35 billion deal between the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable, which was acquired by Charter in 2016.
The availability of RSN has long been a sore spot for Dodgers fans.
It wasn't until 2020 that SportsNet LA became accessible via Southern California's second largest pay TV carrier, DirecTV.
