Will Golden Knights fans face television blackout to start the season?

By Jesse Granger

Thursday, Aug. 24, 2017 | 2 a.m.

The Vegas Golden Knights are 24 days away from the first game in franchise history, and there’s a chance many in Southern Nevada won’t get to view the area’s first major sports franchise on television.

In the three months since the Golden Knights agreed to a multiyear deal making AT&T SportsNet their television home, it appears little progress has been made to get the channel on Cox Communications or CenturyLink’s Prism TV.

The regional sports network, owned by AT&T U-verse and DirecTV, is only available in Southern Nevada through Dish Network (channel 414) and DirecTV (channel 683) with sports packages. The package on DirecTV costs subscribers an extra $14 per month ($168 per year).

But for the thousands with Cox there will be no way to see the games until an agreement is reached, which owner Bill Foley has long maintained will happen in time for the season.

“We have begun discussions with AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain about the possibility of adding the network in our Las Vegas market,” said Cox spokesman Juergen Barbusca. “We hope that we can come to an agreement that allows our customers to watch the Golden Knights, but at a reasonable cost.”

Those last two words conjure up thoughts of the conflict between the Los Angeles Dodgers and cable providers in Southern California.

In January 2013, Time Warner Cable Inc. agreed to a 25-year, $8.35 billion deal for the exclusive rights to broadcast Dodgers games on their new channel SportsNet LA beginning in the 2014 season.

Similar to today’s situation in Las Vegas, the channel wasn’t available on other major television providers (DirecTV and Verizon). Because Time Warner Cable paid such an extravagant price for the rights to the games, they asked more than cable companies were willing to pay to recoup the money — $5 per subscriber.

Four years later the stalemate continues, and millions of Dodgers fans in Southern California are missing their team’s historically great season — they have the best record in baseball heading into the final month of the season.

“We know that many Las Vegas viewers are enthusiastic about the Golden Knights debut, but sports programming comes at an extremely high price,” Barbusca said. “As we continually adjust our channel lineup, we must consider the needs of all our customers, not just sports/Golden Knights fans, and protect the value of the products and services we provide.”

Cox is the third largest multiple services operator in the cable industry behind Comcast and Time Warner, currently serving approximately 6 million residences and businesses nationally. Because the company is privately held, it doesn’t publish local subscriber information.

“We are in discussions with distributors in the marketplace, and look forward to bringing Golden Knights hockey to fans in Las Vegas and throughout the Rockies,” AT&T SportsNet said in a statement to the Las Vegas Sun.

Another layer to the dynamic is AT&T SportsNet is owned by DirecTV, and if Cox Cable and CenturyLink are unable to acquire the channel that could directly lead to customers dropping them in favor of DirecTV.

If Golden Knights fans with Cox order the NHL’s Center Ice package for around $150, they’d still be shut out because the package doesn’t show games of the team in subscribers' home city.

That means Center Ice subscribers will get nearly every NHL game across North America except Golden Knights games, whether the team is at home or on the road.

If a deal doesn’t get done, local sports fans won’t only be missing out on the Golden Knights. Four UNLV football games are slated to air on AT&T SportsNet this year as well, including the Rebels’ Nov. 25 season finale against UNR.