Bally Sports currently has the local broadcasting rights for 14 of Major League Baseball’s 30 franchises — including five teams for which it owns the streaming rights as well. However, MLB appears to be increasingly making moves to either take back or take over those rights, should they become available due to bankruptcy complications, reports The Streamable.
While reports last year indicated that theNBA, NHL, and MLB were in discussions to purchase the Bally Sports networks from Diamond’s parent company Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBG), that never came to pass. However, MLB did hire a former Sinclair executive to potentially end its relationship with RSNs altogether.
“Our strong preference would be for the RSNs to be able to fulfill the agreements they signed with the clubs. However, we need to be prepared if the RSNs are unable to do so,” Garden said “This is a situation we have been monitoring for a long time. We have been contingency planning to ensure that no matter what happens with the RSNs, fans will be able to continue watching their favorite teams in their local market.”
The current deals between the RSNs and Major League Baseball are quite lucrative for the league, with Diamond paying $1.47 billion in sports rights fees in just the first nine months of 2022. If Diamond files for bankruptcy, some believe the company could be protected from non-payment on the deal, leaving MLB without that substantial revenue stream, although the league will have a chance to renegotiate those deals if that happens. Additionally, the bankruptcy could leave 14 MLB teams without local broadcasts, something that would dramatically impact viewership numbers for those teams. For all of these reasons, MLB needs to take steps to prepare for the possible disaster.
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