Major League Baseball franchise the Los Angeles Dodgers has opened talks with the league over a potential new regional television deal with US broadcasters Fox Sports or Time Warner Cable, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The report said that the franchise’s controlling owner, Mark Walter, had been “personally involved” in discussions with the league to ensure the Dodgers avoid “a showdown with MLB” in the US Bankruptcy Court, which oversaw the sale of the franchise in March.
The discussions between Walter and the league centre on whether all of the Dodgers’ guaranteed television revenue from any deal should be subject to the league’s revenue-sharing programme.
The court, rather than the league, has the final say over the Dodgers’ media-rights deals under the terms of the sale of the franchise in March 2012, the report added.
The franchise is currently weighing up a possible rights deal with Fox Sports or Time Warner Cable as well as the possibility of launching a new regional sports channel.
Fox currently holds the regional television rights for the Dodgers, but the current deal will expire at the end of the 2013 season.