The British Basketball League has set a new broadcast partnership with Bally Sports, a deal that will bring of British basketball to regional audiences across the U.S. Bally Sports will offer two weekly […]
The agreement, which was contained in a court filing made Wednesday, is subject to court approval. Diamond Sports has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the Southern District of Texas since it filed for protection in March. The company said in a financial filing last year that it had debt of $8.67 billion.
ATLANTA (AP) — The Atlanta Braves have hired Rangers analyst C.J. Nitkowski to serve on their main television broadcast team, allowing Jeff Francoeur to spend more time with his family. […]
Signaling a major thaw in the icy relationship between Major League Baseball and bankrupt regional sports networks operator Diamond Sports Group, lawyers for the league on Friday said they’d agreed on a framework through mediation to keep 11 MLB clubs on Bally Sports channels through the 2024 season.
Sinclair Broadcast Group wants to pay pennies on the dollar to regain control of a nationwide chain of regional sports networks — which it had paid $10.6 billion to acquire four years ago only to see it fall into bankruptcy this spring. Sinclair, which owns 185 TV stations in 86 markets, has offered roughly $850 million in partnership with Bally’s owner Soo Kim to regain control of its bankrupt subsidiary, Diamond Sports Group, which airs local games on TV under the Bally Sports brand and owns the rights to 39 teams across MLB, the NBA and NHL, sources say.
Making perhaps its harshest rebuke yet of the cash-strapped regional sports network that still controls local TV rights to 12 of its clubs, Major League Baseball told a Houston bankruptcy court Wednesday that Bally Sports network operator Diamond Sports Group should not be granted another extension to come up with a Chapter 11 restructuring plan.
E.W. Scripps has agreements to place in several markets to broadcast games where teams are worried that their games will no longer be telecast by Bally Sports regional networks. The local sports market is entering a potentially chaotic phase, with the Major League Baseball season ending and the NBA and NHL about to start play for 2023-24. Scripps Sports President Brian Lawlor said: “Every team associated with Bally is concerned about the future. As a result they are all doing contingency planning for the short term and the longer term.”
As the NBA approaches a new season, releasing its 2023-24 schedule earlier this month and rolling out the matchups to watch over the next year, a nettlesome issue continues to hover over the league and half of its teams. Diamond Sports Group, the company that operates 19 Bally Sports regional sports networks across the United States and owns the local television rights for 15 NBA teams, including the Mavericks, Clippers, Cavaliers and Spurs, among others, continues to have its future linger in bankruptcy court. That has caused some uncertainty about how those teams will broadcast their games locally during the upcoming season.
Diamond’s largely stiffed secondary creditors are asking the bankruptcy court why they’ve been left holding the bag while JP Morgan was made whole.
Sinclair subsidiary Diamond Sports Group has already used federal bankruptcy protection to walk away from one Major League Baseball team, the San Diego Padres, with which it has a money-losing distribution deal. And it’s looking more and more like Diamond will banish more MLB teams from its Bally Sports portfolio of regional sports networks.
The Texas bankruptcy court overseeing Diamond Sports Group’s restructuring says the NBA franchise must first try to negotiate a new deal with Sinclair’s regional sports network subsidiary.
A Texas bankruptcy court overseeing the Chapter 11 restructuring of Sinclair’s regional sports networks subsidiary, Diamond Sports Group, has told Diamond to pay half of what it owes to four of the five Major League Baseball franchises to which it had previously withheld TV rights payments for the just-started 2023 baseball season. The unpaid balances, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said, will be rendered next month, after the restructuring process resets the individual team fees Diamond must pay.
The Cleveland Guardians and Minnesota Twins appear to be the latest Major League Baseball teams forsaken by Bally Sports, as the bankrupt regional sports network owner restructures and seeks to walk away from its most unprofitable TV contracts with pro sports teams.