The ongoing bankruptcy saga involving Diamond Sports showed signs of resolution on January 17 with a proposed multi-million dollar deal between Amazon and Bally Sports.
Amazon agreed to a minority share in exchange for streaming rights to some sports teams. The proposed deal was presented to a bankruptcy court in Houston on Wednesday and has yet to be finalized.
Under the terms of the proposal, Amazon has agreed to an initial investment of $115 million to gain the rights to stream coverage of nine teams through its Amazon Prime Video service. The teams involved in the deal are the Los Angeles Angels, Detroit Tigers, Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, and Tampa Bay Rays.
It is believed that the deal will not allow free streaming on Prime Video. Instead, fans would be required to pay a subscription fee to stream games. The costs and structure of the service have yet to be arranged and could take several months to iron out.
The deal could result in Diamond Sports continuing to hold the rights to many of the 18 networks and 37 teams under the Bally Sports umbrella. The current deal does not resolve issues with the World Series champion Texas Rangers but could result in a restructured deal being finished before the upcoming Major League Baseball season.
“There is a lot to digest. It is unable to be digested because it hasn’t been purchased, cooked, or served. When we get to that point, we will look at it and figure out whether it is able to be digested,” MLB lawyer James Bromley said during the hearing. “We will refrain from adding congratulations until such time that something is actually delivered.”
Diamond Sports was forced to surrender cable and television rights last year to the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks after failing to make payments. Those teams’ rights now belong to the League.
“I think the whole thing’s unfortunate,” MLB chief revenue officer Noah Garden told ESPN in May 2023. “Since Day 1, we had hoped that our partners lived up to their contractual obligations. And through a variety of, quite frankly, mismanagement and continued mismanagement, their company fell on hard times.”
Diamond Sports filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2023, citing overpriced network agreements and cord-cutting by viewers as reasons for a sharp decline in revenue that left the group unable to fulfill payments to the teams.
Diamond Sports was created in 2019 following the sale of Fox Sports Network to Sinclair Broadcasting. The U.S. Justice Department forced the sale of FSN when 21st Century Fox was purchased by Disney Corp. earlier that year. Bally Sports purchased branding rights from Diamond and launched an independent streaming service, Bally Sports+. The streaming service is not available on popular services like Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTubeTV. Customers have rejected the service due to the high cost and limited coverage.
The latest development will allow Diamond Sports to begin negotiating with other teams and networks to resolve contract disputes and should ensure that MLB, NHL, and NBA fans will be able to watch their favorite teams, though some fans may be forced to pay for coverage.
