Major League Baseball franchise the San Diego Padres is targeting a Mexican broadcast rights deal as it prepares to return to the market.
MLB last week revealed it is to return to Mexico for the first time since 2004 after confirming that the Padres and Houston Astros will play a pair of Spring Training games in Mexico City this March.
The Padres and Astros will take part in two Spring Training games on March 26-27 at Fray Nano, the home of Mexican team the Diablos Rojos del Mexico. The Padres last took to Mexico when they featured in a Spring Training contest against the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2002.
However, despite San Diego being only 15 miles from the Mexican border, the Padres are closing in on five seasons without their games being broadcast in the country. “There’s no question,” Padres president Mike Dee said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper. “We have to work to get it resolved.”
The Union-Tribune said any potential deal rests on successful negotiations between Fox Sports San Diego, which owns the team’s local broadcast rights, and Mexican cable television provider Cablemás.
Henry Ford, the senior vice-president and general manager of Fox Sports San Diego, said MLB’s international broadcast rights make striking a deal challenging. “Those discussions (with Cablemás) have occurred numerous times over the last few years with very little progress, if progress is measured in us being on the air down there,” he noted.
Ford said creating more productive talks with Cablemás requires creating more demand for the Padres. He added that the team’s increased efforts to connect with the Baja Region will help make a deal more possible.