overall, sports have been a part of channel 9's identity. Indeed, during the station's two-decade licensing dispute, its large slate of sports programming was essentially the only thing that kept it as part of the Southern California television landscape. KCAL-TV previously held the broadcast television rights to the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, carrying a slate of games from 2006 to 2013, televising at least 50 games each year, with all telecasts being broadcast in high definition. In 2014, KCAL lost rights to the Dodger telecasts to the cable-exclusive regional sports network SportsNet LA, which is co-owned by the team and Charter Communications. Channel 9 is best known as the longtime broadcast home of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers. The station carried Lakers games from 1961 to 1964 (as KHJ-TV), and again from 1977 to 2012. The latter 35 years were the NBA's longest consecutive station-team broadcast partnership, and coincided with the Lakers' golden eras of the 1980s and early 2000s. For most of channel 9's second stint with the Lakers, it aired road games only. In 2012, KCAL lost rights to the Lakers telecasts to the cable-exclusive regional sports network Spectrum SportsNet and Spectrum Deportes which was renamed in 2016 after the merger of Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications. From 1961 to 1963, KHJ-TV was the first television home of the Los Angeles Angels; the baseball team's telecasts moved to KTLA in 1964, when then-Angels owner Gene Autry's Golden West Broadcasters purchased that station. The television rights to Angels games returned to KCAL-TV in 1996 (The Walt Disney Company's ownership interest in the Angels briefly overlapped its stewardship of the station), and added more basketball coverage that same year with the Los Angeles Clippers, in addition to its Lakers telecasts. The station and the Clippers parted ways in 2001 as they eventually moved their over-the-air telecasts to KTLA, while the Angels left KCAL after the 2005 season, moving to KCOP the following year. In addition, KCAL had broadcast select weekend Mighty Ducks of Anaheim games from the NHL team's inaugural season in 1993 (both the team and KCAL were Disney properties until 1996) until 2006, when the Ducks moved their over-the-air broadcasts to Anaheim-based independent station KDOC-TV. Also, at the end of the 2013 season, the Dodgers would part ways with KCAL-TV (becoming cable-exclusive on SportsNet LA, although a few games per season have been seen on KTLA