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Time Warner and Lakers: A Marriage Made In...?
Photo by =Manny= via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr
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No Dwight Howard, no Kobe Bryant, no interest. It didn't really matter that the Lakers lost to the Portland Trail Blazers 93-75 especially since from the sound of the outrage on the interweb the only people who witnessed the game were the people at Citizen's Business Bank Arena in Ontario.
Currently only Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks offer both Time Warner Cable SportsNet and Time Warner Cable Deportes. With the $3.95 per subscriber cost for cable and satellite providers, the best case scenario is an agreement to be done hours within the second game of the season on Oct. 31 against the Blazers. The season opener is a TNT exclusive the night before at home against the Dallas Mavericks.
But seeing how DirecTV and AT&T U-Verse still don't carry the Pac-12 Network and it took several weeks into the college football season before DISH Network picked up the network, there isn't any guarantee that everyone in Los Angeles who pays for a television service will get to watch the Lakers.
Among the funniest statements I heard while watching TWC SportsNet was from Lakers play-by-play announcer Bill Macdonald telling viewers before Sunday's exhibition opener that this relationship between the Lakers and Time Warner Cable will benefit the fans. Billy Mac, if completely fucking half of your fanbase by blocking them from watching the games on television is beneficial, then yes, this is a great relationship.
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What about the people who use rabbit ears to get their television? They used to have the luxury of KCAL to watch most of the Lakers road games. Of course they still have ABC to watch the occasional Sunday game, so that should be good enough right?
Let's not kid ourselves. Fans do not figure into the equation when it comes to money and television. When a company is willing to give a team $2 billion over the course of 20 years, an inconvenienced fan means next to nothing in the grand scheme of things. After all, if you are really desperate you will find a way to fork over your money to get the service, right?
At least that's what the Lakers and Time Warner Cable is counting on happening. And if not, you can always listen to John Ireland and Mychal Thompson on AM 710 KSPN. I can already see the consumption of Excedrin at an all-time high in Southern California if that's the case.
Speaking of great relationships, I wonder how the Galaxy and Sparks feel about things. This was supposed to be their first season under the TWC deal, but TWC wasn't ready to broadcast games. Both teams were relegated to KDOC and TWC Channel 101.
Seeing how well all of this has been handled, imagine what will happen in a couple of years if the Dodgers get an entire regional sports network. Let the panic ensue.
While going between the Lakers, Orioles-Yankees and Tigers-Athletics, I did catch the probing Twitter question that was posed to fans during the Lakers broadcast. "What do you think of Metta World Peace's slim but jacked up look?"
If that is any hint of what will come, this should be an interesting season of Lakers broadcasts.
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Noted reporter and writer extraordinaire Arash Markazi has the quote of the millenium from Kobe Bryant:
Kobe Bryant: "Smush Parker was the worst. He shouldn't have been in the NBA but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard."
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) October 11, 2012
Can you imagine if Jersey Shore was around during that dark period of Laker history? Maybe we would have just called him William. Or Will. Or Bill. I hope he's having fun in Iran.
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