San Diego Padres Baseball is in full swing; however, if you subscribe to Time Warner Cable, you haven’t seen a game from the comfort of your own home all season, as well as last season. The powers in charge of Time Warner Cable have still yet to come to an agreement with Fox Sports San Diego, which carries 150+ Padres baseball games and there is no deal in sight. The situation has been at such a stalemate that the local government has gotten involved as well. The city council recently voted 6-0 to urge the two companies to continue with their negotiations and to try and come to an agreement. This vote really has no bearing on getting anything accomplished and was merely a symbolic vote, but goes to show how important this is to the San Diego community.
Fox Sports has offered Time Warner Cable a deal that four other vendors have signed, however Time Warner Cable says that the price is just too high. Fox Sports justifies their carriage fee since it’s not just the Padres games that air on the network. It is the city’s first 24/7, 365 days-a-week local sports network that also features the Los Angeles Clippers basketball games, Anaheim Ducks hockey, Big West athletics, San Diego State and University of San Diego programming.
San Diego is such a fair-weather town when it comes to sports anyways, alienating over 185,000 households from watching their home team play does not help in any way. The Padres last season has one of the highest drops in viewership of any other major-league team and this can directly be blamed for the lack of TV coverage and the on field product. Attendance figures at Petco Park are continuing to drop and it’s hard to get fans excited about coming out to see their team play when the television broadcasts are losing out on the roughly 20% of San Diego households who have Time Warner Cable. Fans are furious over this issue and one fan even took to the Coronado Flower Show this past weekend to show his frustration.
So what is next for Time Warner Cable and Fox Sports San Diego? It sure doesn’t look like fans will be seeing their home town team play on the network anytime soon. The best way for them to catch a Padres game is to switch cable providers, head down to Petco Park or venture on down to their local watering hole and watch the game. Hopefully this all gets resolved this season but it sure doesn’t seem like it will.
Related articles
- San Diego City Council urges resolution of Padres broadcast dispute (swrnn.com)
- Filner to Time Warner: End impasse by 2013 Padres season (utsandiego.com)
- My take on how sports are viewed in San Diego (nsaeger.wordpress.com)
Kevin's USF Sport Management Blog 
Glad to see that the city leadership took the time to vote on this. Get a deal worked out so the fans don’t have to suffer. Then we can discuss the product on the field.