Amazon reportedly is close to complete a long-expected expansion in its regional sports streaming efforts.
The online retail and streaming giant is close to an agreement with bankrupt Diamond Sports Group to stream most of the Bally Sports parent company’s content, according to a report in the New York Post. Fans could pay almost $20 per month to Amazon to gain access to regional teams. The pact has been expected since early this year, and more so in recent weeks—even after Amazon dropped out of a prior agreement to provide DSG with $115 million post-exit financing to aid its emergence from bankruptcy.
The agreement, at least at the outset, will involve 27 teams from the NBA, NHL, and MLB for which DSG has digital rights. DSG also airs games for seven other MLB teams, at least for the 2024 season, only on a linear basis as digital rights have been seen as a particularly thorny “gating issue” for some of those clubs.
The deal could further accelerate cord cutting, sources noted, although Bally will continue to broadcast the games across cable networks nationwide. Financial terms of the Amazon deal currently under discussion couldn’t immediately be learned. A source said it is not exclusive, allowing Diamond to further expand its reach by signing deals with other platforms including YouTube.
Diamond, which has been in Chapter 11 since March 2023, is hoping that the Amazon streaming pact, along with other deals approved by a judge on Wednesday with the NBA and NHL for the new season, will be enough to persuade the court to allow it to emerge from bankruptcy in November, sources said.
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