Stars align for LAFC on new Spanish-language TV deal

One thing I noticed coming out of Los Angeles Football Club’s game at Club León last week was Diego Rossi being interviewed while holding an EstrellaTV microphone. Turns out, that was not a coincidence, as LAFC have announced EstrellaTV will be the Spanish-language TV partner for greater Los Angeles for the 2020 season.

“Our new partnership with Estrella Media reinforces our Club’s commitment to providing our fans and supporters with an unparalleled viewing experience and LAFC coverage,” said LAFC EVP and CBO Larry Freedman in a team statement. “We are proud to welcome Estrella Media to the Black & Gold community and look forward to this fully-integrated relationship.”

What does this mean? If you have a cable subscription in the greater LA area (which is huge), you’ll be able to watch LAFC games that aren’t on a national network this season. It’s similar to the arrangement the club had the last two years, only the network perhaps has more range than the last one, situated in Twentynine Palms.

Here’s a full rundown of the channel guide, as provided by the team. One note: You may need to look for the channel in your cable listings ahead of time — mine was said to be Ch. 24 on Spectrum, but it’s actually Ch. 23.

But the bottom line: If you can’t cut the cord or don’t want to, or you want to watch LAFC in Spanish, you can still do that in 2020.

More news for this Monday:

• More on Atuesta: The plot thickens a bit regarding Eduard Atuesta’s absence from last week’s CCL opener. After Vince La Rosa said the Colombian missed the game due to “load management,” a new column on the team website over the weekend by La Rosa said it was that, plus some unspecified “discomfort”: “Eduard Atuesta didn’t take part in the first leg against León due to discomfort he’d felt in warm-ups through the week before the match...Atuesta is in training this week and with the nine-day lead up to the return leg, Bradley said the midfielder is making progress and the team is ‘hopeful’ he’ll take part on Thursday.” We’ll see if he features Thursday in the return leg, but I guess an actual knock makes more sense to hold him out than just wanting to rest him.
• Youth being served: Kevin Baxter of The Los Angeles Times wrote about LAFC doubling down on a youth policy this year. To be honest, I didn’t realize LAFC played the most minutes with players under 24 in the league last year, so I guess you can see where they’re coming from on that.
• Welcome Baby Harvey: Speaking of youth, there’s a new member of the LAFC community, as Jordan Harvey’s wife Kimberly Caldwell Harvey gave birth to the couple’s second daughter, Houston Mae. Congrats to the Harveys!

Today’s question: I’m curious to hear how you watch locally broadcast LAFC games? YouTubeTV? The Spanish feed? Less legal means? Let’s talk about that and whatever else strikes your fancy below!