The differences between the National Football League and the three other major American sports are too numerous to count, but perhaps the most telling has to do with broadcast contracts. Each league has an overarching deal with a network to televise a certain number of games a year, but with the NFL, all the games are broadcast in this fashion. In the other sports, each team has individual contracts with cable providers. That's why the more popular teams can make serious bank while the bottom feeders are forced to sell off the rights for pennies in comparison. Then again, some teams are so popular they simply start their own network. The Yankees did it with the highly successful YES, and now the Los Angeles Lakers are partnering with Time Warner to launch two regional sports networks.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the deal won't go into effect until the 2012-2013 season, but by that point, the cable giant hopes to have both networks, one English and one Spanish, on the market and ready to accommodate the huge demand the Lakers will invariably draw. From that point forward, all home and road games will be televised on the channels, at least the ones not promised by the NBA to ESPN or ABC. Don't worry though, the networks will be available to all cable and satellite providers in the area; so, it's unlikely you'll miss any games due to corporate posturing.
The Yankees channel broadcasts New York Nets games in addition to a host of college programming. Don't be surprised if these still untitled Laker networks look to follow the same format.
