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Dodgers channel collusion lawsuit settled by U.S. Department of Justice
There’s been no shortage of drama concerning the Los Angeles Dodgers own sports network, SportsNet LA, since it was founded in 2014. On Thursday, some of that drama ceased to exist.
The U.S. Department of Justice has settled its lawsuit with AT&T and DirecTV, which had been filed back in November 2016. The DOJ alleged that in 2014, during the rollout of SportsNet LA, DirecTV (which has been owned by AT&T since 2015) colluded with other pay-TV companies in Southern California, sharing information so DirecTV could gain leverage over Time Warner Cable. That leverage was intended to force Time Warner Cable into accepting DirecTV’s terms to carry SportsNet LA. Pay-TV companies have said that SportsNet LA is too expensive.
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The settlement is nothing earth-shattering. The Los Angeles Times reported that AT&T will be monitoring its employees to make sure no one shares sensitive information about contract negotiations. Sharing that kind of information is illegal to begin with so AT&T has essentially pledged to follow the law, but this time they really mean it. The settlement provides a few extra steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
As part of the settlement, AT&T employees will be forbidden from sharing information about carriage contract negotiations with outsiders, including journalists. A compliance officer will monitor AT&T employees who have access to sensitive information about distribution deals and negotiations.
In addition, AT&T must keep detailed logs of executives’ communications, including whom they talked to, and periodically submit reports containing that information to the government. The Justice Department will monitor AT&T’s employees’ communications for five years.
The lawsuit may be settled, but this is still bad news for Dodgers fans in Southern California who don’t have access to Time Warner Cable. The settlement didn’t require AT&T to carry SportsNet LA, so TWC is still the only cable company that carries the Dodgers’ own network. And since SportsNet LA broadcasts the vast majority of Dodgers games, that means that anyone without TWC in all of Southern California (where many Dodgers fans live) can’t watch the Dodgers play.
That the settlement does nothing to improve this situation is unfortunate, but it was by design. The lawsuit was never meant to force AT&T to carry SportsNet LA. From the Los Angeles Times:
“Negotiations between video programmers and [pay-TV companies] are often contentious, high-stakes undertakings,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in a supplemental court filing. “The proposed final judgment is not intended to address such negotiating tactics, or to impose any agreement upon Time Warner Cable, which owns rights to the Dodgers Channel, or any [pay-TV company] that is not the result of an unfettered negotiation in the marketplace.”
The purpose of the settlement was instead to make sure that AT&T and DirecTV stopped breaking the law to gain an unfair advantage in negotiations. And that’s fair, since what they did was illegal. What’s not illegal is what Time Warner Cable is doing, which is offering SportsNet LA to other cable companies at a price they say is too expensive. But since Time Warner Cable owns the rights to SportsNet LA, they can decide the price.
So the Dodgers blackout in Southern California continues. And it doesn’t look like there’s a resolution in sight.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
