When Comcast SportsNet released its A’s broadcast schedule for 2013, I took a brief glance at it and it looked similar to previous years so I didn’t pay much attention to it. This week I’ve had a chance to look at it in greater depth, and while it is not much of a departure from past years, there’s a quirky stretch in there that could throw fans for a loop. CSN California will show 144 regular season games and two spring training contests. The April 3 game vs. Seattle will be shown on KOFY-20 instead of CSN California, as both the Earthquakes and Kings have 7 or 7:30 scheduled games that night. As for the quirky stretch, it’s during the dog days of summer.

Late July and August schedule has several games that will not be on CSN California

Thanks to a number of getaway day games both home and away, nine games in a month-long stretch will not be on CSNBA. This is something we’re used to, as the A’s prefer to have their “businessperson’s special” games not televised in order to get more fans out to the Coliseum (there are exceptions late in the season). Road games are more of a mystery, and seem like nothing more than cheapness or a product of a ratings cost/benefit analysis. In any case, it seems like there are a lot of holes in that stretch. Fortunately, three of the games during that month are Saturday day games that will be regionally broadcast on Fox (KTVU). In fact, the A’s will be on the big Fox network at least six times during the season, with the possibility of additional broadcasts coming at the end of the season if the A’s are in a pennant race. That’s a huge improvement over the mere two planned Fox broadcasts last season, one of which was a game against the Giants. Those six games with broadcast times are:

• May 25 – Oakland @ Houston, 4 PM
• June 15 – Seattle @ Oakland, 4 PM
• July 27 – LA Angels @ Oakland, 11:30 AM
• August 3 – Texas @ Oakland, 12:30 PM
• August 24 – Oakland @ Baltimore, 12:30 PM
• September 14 – Oakland @ Texas, 9:30 AM

There’s also the chance for games on ESPN, ESPN2, and TBS. Given those networks’ East Coast biases, I don’t expect any gaps to be filled in. ESPN and TBS haven’t filled out their season schedules yet, and TBS’s incomplete schedule is so heavily weighted towards the Eastern Time Zone that it’s worth asking why anyone from the West Coast would bother watching TBS.

Next year will be a little more complicated in terms of national broadcasts with the advent of Fox Sports 1. Fox will program frequent Saturday doubleheaders, with the day game on Fox and the night game on FS1 or both on the cable network. The deal calls for FS1 games to involve teams whose games are already carried and produced by Fox Sports regional networks. That could prove problematic for the two Bay Area teams, as they are under the Comcast SportsNet umbrella. Chances are that if we see the A’s and Giants on FS1, it will be with broadcasters from Fox Sports West/Prime, Southwest (Texas), and the YES Network, which Fox bought an interest in last year.

All told, the A’s will have 150 regular season games on TV, 144 on CSNCA and 6 on Fox. Get your radio out for the rest.