Thursday, February 12, 2009

A's Sign New TV and Radio Deals!

Although I haven't seen it announced on the A's website yet, the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as Comcast SportsNet California, has announced an awesome new television deal with the A's this season!

Plus, as an added bonus, I can finally listen to the game on the radio here in Sacramento. It was frustrating enough that the games were almost never on TV (but every Barry Bonds / Giants game was), but I couldn't even listed to them on the radio. Now that Barry's gone, the A's seem to finally be getting some respect!

Here's the abbreviated announcement (with a great comment about the change from channel 88 to 89) from Susan Slusser at the Chronicle:

The A's have a new TV home, as anticipated Sacramento-based Comcast SportsNet California, and a new spot on Comcast's dial, Channel 89. (Initially, the A's were tabbed for channel 88, but the spouse of a team executive pointed out that '88 was not nearly as good a year for Oakland as was the following championship season.)

Every Bay Area broadcast and satellite service will receive the 147 games, I'm told, except possibly Astound, a cable service in Walnut Creek. The A's are advising Astound customers to take this up with Astound directly; the company is still in talks to carry the broadcasts but has not reached any agreements.

The number of HD broadcasts will soar, to 75 games, a 75 percent increase over last year.
In addition, the A's recently found a Sacramento radio affiliate (KTKZ) to broadcast 127 games. So along with the new Bay Area radio deal, which is far superior to anything the team has had in the past several years, this has been a very successful offseason in terms of broadcast outlets for the club.


Now I REALLY can't wait for the season to begin!

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