Fox Sports West, FSW2 to Air Duck Games 1, 2

Rather than face another round in court--plus a public-relations nightmare--Fox Sports West announced Tuesday that Games 1 and 2 of the Mighty Ducks’ playoff series against the Phoenix Coyotes will be televised on both Fox Sports West and Fox Sports West 2.

Originally, those games were to be shown only on Fox Sports West 2. Then on Monday the Ducks, after notifying the NHL, gave ESPN permission to lift its blackouts of those games in Southern California.

Fox Sports West said the Ducks had no legal basis for doing that, since it holds exclusive rights to show those games in Southern California on Fox Sports West 2.

The problem is, Fox Sports West 2 is not available on any cable systems in Orange County and on only a few in the Greater Los Angeles market. It reaches about 600,000 homes. Fox Sports West reaches 4.5 million.

Instead of taking the Ducks to court, Fox decided to also show the games on Fox Sports West.

“We wanted everyone in Southern California to see these games,” said Kitty Cohen, Fox Sports West’s general manager.

Cohen also said, “We are close to finalizing deals with many cable operators for carriage of Fox Sports West 2, thus, in consideration of them, and with the urgency of the situation, we did not want the loyal Duck fans to miss their team’s very first playoff games.”

The league said the ESPN blackout of Game 1 and ESPN2 blackout of Game 2 would be back in effect.