Attendance Record Is Expected to Fall

With a more favorable home schedule next year, the Dodgers are on course to set the club attendance record this season and break the record next season.

The Dodgers have sold 3.5 million tickets through Sunday and are on pace to sell 3.7 million this season. In 1982, when the National League measured attendance by tickets used rather than tickets sold, the Dodgers drew a record 3,608,881.

“We’re well on our way to setting our single-season attendance record,” said Marty Greenspun, the team’s chief operation officer.

The Dodgers expect better attendance next year, in part because they won’t be coming off a 91-loss season and in part because the 2007 schedule tentatively includes a visit from the Boston Red Sox and a weekend visit from the Chicago Cubs. The popular Cubs played at Dodger Stadium once this year, on three weeknights in April, and the even more popular Red Sox would replace the Seattle Mariners on the interleague schedule.

The Red Sox were swept in their only previous trip to Dodger Stadium, in 2002, a series in which the winning pitchers were Hideo Nomo, Omar Daal and Andy Ashby.

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As FSN and the Angels negotiated a $500-million cable contract this spring, FSN asked for video-on-demand (VOD) rights in the deal. The Angels told FSN that major league rules precluded an individual club from awarding those rights, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

So eyebrows were raised among baseball and broadcasting insiders last week, when the Dodgers launched a VOD channel on Time Warner Cable. In an e-mail sent to major league teams Friday, Major League Baseball President Bob DuPuy reiterated no club can award VOD rights, and MLB officials initiated an investigation into the Dodgers’ deal.

The concern, not surprisingly, involves money. The Dodgers’ VOD channel currently is limited to highlights from the 1981 championship season and assorted interviews. But with emerging technologies that enable viewers to use their remote control to click and buy tickets and merchandise, MLB apparently is concerned about the distribution of any such revenue, a baseball source said.

MLB officials have not told him why they object to the Dodgers’ channel, Greenspun said. The Dodgers did not check with MLB first, he said, because they consider a VOD channel “clearly within our rights.” He declined to address whether the Dodgers plan to sell tickets and merchandise on the channel. “Right now, it’s a video library,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”

DuPuy did not reply to an e-mail Sunday.

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J.D. Drew wore a protective sleeve on his left elbow during batting practice, a precaution against aggravating what athletic trainer Stan Johnston said was mild soreness. Drew said he could have played, but Manager Grady Little said he did not because of his record against Giants starter Jason Schmidt -- three for 27, 13 strikeouts. ... Julio Lugo played right field, his first start there in six years. ... Andre Ethier’s hitting streak ended at 16 games, four shy of Tommy Davis’ record for Dodgers rookies.