Report: Dodgers, Time Warner agree to more than $7 billion TV deal

The Los Angeles Dodgers reportedly have agreed to a local-television contract with Time Warner. The LA Times reports the deal is for between $7 billion and $8 billion.

A pricey new television contract means Magic Johnson and the Dodgers have much about which to smile. (Getty Images)

The Dodgers have agreed to a new local-television contract with Time Warner, sources tell Bloomberg. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times is now reporting the deal is worth between $7 billion and $8 billion.

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The Dodgers' recent $2.15 billion sale price was in large part built around assumptions that the team would fetch a mammoth media-rights deal. What also makes the deal lucrative for the new ownership group publicly fronted by Earvin "Magic" Johnson is that much of the local-television windfall might be exempted from revenue sharing.

As the Los Angeles Times recently noted, this reported figure means the Dodgers' pact would easily be the largest television deal in sports history. The Times also points out that the deal might result in the Dodgers' getting their own regional network, not unlike the Yankees' YES Network.

Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp is the outgoing rights-holder. The global media conglomerate had been paying roughly $40 million in order to carry Dodger games.

If nothing else, the Dodgers' deep coffers and willingness to spend are going to be part of the baseball landscape for a long time to come.

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