MLB Rejects Amazon’s $150M Bankruptcy Bid

Major League Baseball has rejected a proposed roughly $150 million lifeline extended by Amazon to the nation’s largest regional sports network as it languishes in bankruptcy, The NY Post is reporting.

Diamond Sports, a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcasting, filed for Chapter 11 protection last March as the landscape for RSNs continued to suffer a seismic shift because of cord-cutting and the subsequent loss of advertising revenue, as The Post previously reported.

Amazon attempted to come to Diamond’s rescue last month by offering to invest roughly $150 million in the company and take over streaming broadcasts for the 11 baseball teams it carries, which include the World Series champs Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals, a source close to the situation told The Post.

However, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred called foul on the proposal ahead of a bankruptcy hearing slated for Wednesday, the insider said.  “They rejected it because Amazon wanted a streaming deal for more than one year,”  the source told The Post.

“Manfred said if you want a digital deal it will be with us.”

At the upcoming bankruptcy hearing in Houston, MLB is expected to offer Diamond a deal that reduces the media rights fees it pays for three of the 11 teams in exchange for MLB gaining the digital rights for all Diamond teams in 2025, sources said.

The bankrupt company could reject the MLB proposal and still try to work out a deal with Amazon, a Diamond lender said, but that would be difficult.

Diamond, which broadcasts games under the Bally’s brand, currently has digital rights to five of the 11 teams, aside from the TV rights.

“Diamond was trying to renegotiate with baseball to get digital rights on a long-term basis [for all the 11 teams] so they could bring in Amazon,” the source said

But it seems like MLB wants to cut out Diamond and strike its own streaming deals with Amazon or Apple starting in 2025.

Both streaming giants currently have deals with MLB to broadcast select teams, including the Yankees.

“I think Amazon would like to do a digital deal with Major League Baseball,” the source familiar with the MLB discussions said. 

Sinclair has made its own offer to buy Diamond in exchange for the RSN dropping a $1.5 billion lawsuit against the parent company for saddling it with debt and charging excessive fees, as The Post reported exclusively,