Britt: Dodger Deal Stabilizes Sports Costs for TWC

TWC chief says Dodger rights would have been expensive "no matter what happened"

By Mike Farrell, Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/31/2013 10:46:42 AM

Time Warner Cable chairman and CEO Glenn Britt addressed the elephant in the room on a conference call with analysts Thursday, adding that its recent regional sports network deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers will help the MSO manage escalating sports costs in the long term.

Time Warner Cable agreed to a 25-year deal to distribute the Dodger's RSN (dubbed SportsNet LA) in the Los Angeles market earlier this week. Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, published reports estimate Time Warner Cable spent between $7 billion and $8 billion for the privilege of distributing the channel.

On a conference call with analysts to discuss its fourth-quarter results, Britt said the MSO's sports strategy in Los Angeles -- last year it agreed to spend an estimated $3 billion to carry Los Angeles Lakers National Basketball Association games for 20 years and formed another RSN, Time Warner Cable SportsNet  -- has been to lock down its costs over a longer period of time.

"We do not pretend that these deals are inexpensive or cheap," Britt said on the call. "Our sense is if we are going to carry these games, they are going to be expensive. We think what we've done with these deals is to minimize and stabilize the costs over a long time period. But we're not trying to pretend that the first year is really, really cheap or anything."

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