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11 February 2009

Comcast Sportsnet California it is!

The A's have managed to extricate themselves from the messy scheduling predicament that is Comcast SportsNet Bay Area with their move to Comcast SportsNet California.

145 games will be included on the expanded CSNCA schedule, with 75 in HD. It's not yet known on what channel the HD broadcasts will be aired, but there is an empty Comcast 721 slot which can serve as CSNCA's HD feed. On satellite services, the distinction between SD and HD feeds is not so clear-cut, so we'll have to see how that shakes out.

On Comcast-serviced cities in the Bay Area, CSNCA will be on channel 89 starting March 11. This may coincide with other channel transitions, many of them related to Comcast's analog-to-digital switch.

The team will share the channel with the Kings, which should work well since there is little overlap between the NBA and MLB seasons. In cases of overlap, the CSN+ channel will still be available for occasional use. For the three games to be broadcast on CSN+ in 2009, this will only be the case in the Sacramento area. Bay Area viewers will see the game on the main CSNCA channel.

CSNCA and CSNBA will revamp their local programming offerings, including:
Among the new additions coming in April are SportsNet Central, a daily locally-focused sports show that will cover hometown teams, breaking local and national stories and updated scores. A separate show, Chronicle Live, will be produced in conjunction with the San Francisco newspaper’s sports department. The show will be an hour-long daily sports talk show.
Few things are more appealing than Ray Ratto's mug on my TV screen. I also wonder if this means the end for the simulcast of Gary Radnich's KNBR show (I'm sure in the minority on this - I love Radnich all the way back to the BayTV days).

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great news, just like the Radio deal. Great news. Hey quick question. I have ATT Uverse, do you think I should call ATT and ask if they will carry the station in the Bay or is too soon, maybe they dont even know about it yet?

Marine Layer said...

Nothing wrong with calling them right away. Applying pressure is one way a RSN gets picked up by a cable provider. It's possible that Comcast and AT&T have already worked out some kind of carriage deal.

Jeffrey said...

http://bayarea.comcastsportsnet.com/programming/csn-california-channel-locations/

According to this AT&T Uverse already carries it on 767

Jesse said...

Thanks Jeffrey you're right.

Anonymous said...

Good for the A's. But their TV broadcasts will now be generated out of COW TOWN!? I just don't like it. Maybe in time CSNCA will move it's studio's to Fremont or SJ.

Did the A's get a stake in CSNCA like the Giants and CSNBA? Didn't see that anywhere.

Anonymous said...

Dickey hits the nail on the head once again ...

A’S TO SAN JOSE? I’m surprised by how many have jumped to the conclusion that baseball commissioner Bud Selig was giving A’s owner Lew Wolff permission to look for a San Jose site in a December letter saying he could pursue other areas. Actually, Selig was trying to give his friend some leverage in making a deal in the East Bay, hoping to scare fans into thinking the A’s might move out of the Bay Area.

If it were possible for the A’s to build a park in San Jose, Wolff would have put his plan into effect there from the beginning. The plan, with the mixture of housing and businesses, was modeled on the Santana Row development in San Jose. The plan would probably have worked well in San Jose, with an infrastructure already in place. It has always been doomed to failure in Fremont, which is a collection of small towns, not a city. I wouldn’t be surprised if Woolf officially declares it dead this spring.

A move to San Jose is not possible, though, because of the Giants agreement with MLB which prohibits another team in Santa Clara County (also, San Mateo and San Francisco counties). That can only be changed by a ¾ vote of the owners. National League owners would not vote for the change because they like the fact that the visiting team’s share of the gate is much larger now than it was at Candlestick. And new Giants managing general partner, William Neukom, has made it plain with his public statements that there will be no buyout, either.

Nor is there a site elsewhere that is more appealing than where the A’s are right now. Wolff should sit tight until the Raiders lease expires after the 2010 season. Al Davis wants a new stadium, which he certainly won’t get in Oakland. A developer in southern California has talked about building a new stadium, but the Chargers are first in line there. The one option for the Raiders might be San Antonio, which has a stadium with luxury boxes and would probably be willing to give the Raiders a much better deal than they could negotiate now with Oakland and Alameda County.

If that happened, the A’s could refashion the Coliseum into a nice baseball park, as the Angels did in Anaheim after the Rams left for St. Louis. Sure beats the Fremont fantasy.

Marine Layer said...

Please try to stay on topic. And try to have some original thoughts. The intellectual crutches some around here need are headshakingly bad.

I'm wondering if Glenn Dickey is simply recycling his old blurbs for filler.

Jeffrey said...

Glenn Dickey never hits a nail on the head. I say this as a fan of his web page, but he is almost always wrong.

Anonymous said...

Seems Dickey has been more accurate than you regarding Fremont ... Old ideas? Maybe, but I'd rather have accuracy than pie in the sky dreaming and cheerleading.

Marine Layer said...

Pie in the sky? Let's see, in the column Dickey advocates for the Raiders to abandon the Bay Area for San Antonio, where the NFL has said the Alamodome is no good for anything more than a interim venue. Then he wants the A's to stay at a revamped Coliseum and cites Anaheim even though the two stadium designs couldn't be more dissimilar. To top it off he has no indication how any of it would be paid for, nor how Oakland should work it out politically despite being left holding the Mt. Davis bag after the Raiders leave. That's not pie in the sky? Please.

The worst part? I went to Dickey's site to do a search for the word "Fremont" in order to cite his prior columns. I got 0 results. "Oakland" nets 1 result from 2005. Perhaps Glenn should get his web lackey to fix the site first. Then again, maybe a single result from 2005 is emblematic of Dickey's understanding of the A's situation.

Anonymous said...

http://bayarea.comcastsportsnet.com/about-us/press-releases/inaugural-oakland-athletics-telecast-schedule/

Anonymous said...

huh???

wow ... you're really grasping at straws now, aren't ya???

it must be frustrating for you though ... after all, you were the one saying we all were wrong about fremont ... that the traffic, lack of infrastructure, and lack of public transit, and lack of a sound financial plan would ultimately doom this "project."

but since your search of Glenn's site yielded only 1 mention of "fremont", you must be right!!!!!

HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Marine Layer said...

No wonder you need to cut-n-paste, anon. You can't even cite me correctly. I did the courtesy of going to Dickey's site to look up his past articles. It's hard for you to win a debate when I can't find his work.

Once again, since you won't actually debate any of the points I've made, I'll have to assume to you don't have a response, other than your usual whatever it is.

Here's something for you to ponder. Dickey apparently doesn't believe Oakland can support 3 teams. Even I don't believe that. Reading is fundamental, buddy.

Jeffrey said...

A Glenn Dickey fan criticizing another for grasping at straws is irony at it's finest.

Glenn's non straw grasps have included the A's and Giants sharing AT&T Park while the Raiders and 49ers share the Coliseum. Maybe a great idea, but something that might actually happen would be nice to discuss. You know, like a possible stadium where Lew Wolff and his crew actually invested millions of dollars

I love Glenn, because he writes what he feels. He is a huge Oakland homer and that is great. But to pretend that ML's research and diligence is somehow more biased, or as biased, as Glenn's musings is hilarious.

Comparing the two is apples and oranges... One writes his opinion based on ... Well, his opinion. The other researches a great deal and presents a lot of facts about things like EIR's, comparisons of transit systems at all major league parks, etc.

So have fun trying to take Glenn's musings and finding facts to back them up.

Tony D. said...

Back on topic R.M.,

Good question by anon 2:19. Did the A's get a stake in CSNCA like the Giants got one in CSNBA? And probably a dumb question: I currently can't get CSNCA on Directv (blacked out!); will I come opening day?

Marine Layer said...

AFAIK terms of the deal were not released. The DirecTV blackout should be lifted before the season begins.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I just signed up with AT&T Uverse package. I do have channels 767 & 770 (Comcast Sports). What are the HDTV channels for these 2 channels. Is AT&T providing these channels on HDTV at this time?