Redskins strike deal with Comcast

The Washington Redskins yesterday struck a four-year deal with Comcast SportsNet (CSN) to make it the team’s official regional sports network, and pave the way for a simulcast of preseason games also shown on WUSA-TV (Channel9).

CSN will share TV distribution of Washington’s Aug.13 game at Carolina, Aug.19 against Cincinnati and Sept.1 at Baltimore. The Redskins’ other preseason game, Aug.26 against Pittsburgh, is slated to be shown nationally on Fox.

The Redskins-CSN agreement also calls for an extensive series of ancillary team programming on CSN, most notably features also produced for Comcast’s video-on-demand service. CSN additionally gains exclusive access to programming developed for Redskins.com, the team’s Web site.

CSN had produced and distributed Redskins preseason games last year in a one-year pact, taking over from WRC-TV (Channel4).

“In concept this is similar to what we were doing with the team last year, but it’s for the four years, and it brings in many more elements such as the [video-on-demand] feature. It’s a big deal for us,” said Chris Helein, CSN spokesman.

The Redskins-CSN relationship also will operate parallel to the network’s preseason TV distribution deal with the Baltimore Ravens.