Diamond Sports Group, the biggest owner of regional sports networks, might only broadcast games for one Major League Baseball team next season.
During a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston on Wednesday, the operator of the Bally Sports regional networks announced it will drop the seven teams it currently has contracts with for the 2025 season.
As part of its plan to reorganize, Diamond intends to cancel the contracts for the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays and try to renegotiate the agreements with five franchises that partially own their regional sports networks: the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, and St. Louis Cardinals.
The Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, and Texas Rangers have contracts that expired at the end of the regular season.
This means the Atlanta Braves would be the only team with an unchanged contract.
Attorneys for Diamond mentioned in the hearing that the company has sent proposals to the 11 teams that are without contracts, rejected deals, or are joint ventures.
Diamond Sports has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the Southern District of Texas since it filed for protection in March 2023. The company reported last year that it had debts of $8.67 billion.
“Today marks an important step forward for Diamond with the filing of a baseline plan to enable us to emerge from bankruptcy as a viable, go-forward business before year-end,” Diamond Sports said in a statement.
“We firmly believe that through our linear and digital offerings we have created the best economic and fan-friendly engine for all of our team partners.”
Diamond attorney Andrew Goldman stated during the 30-minute hearing that discussions are still ongoing with all teams.
MLB attorney James Bromley expressed surprise at the reorganization plan, stating they were “sandbagged” since they learned about it less than two hours before the hearing started.
“We have no information about what is being done,” Bromley said. “We’ve had no opportunity to review and now we’re in front of the court and being asked to make our comments.”
In the last two seasons, Major League Baseball had to take over the broadcasts for the San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Colorado Rockies because agreements could not be made.
Goldman also mentioned during the hearing that Diamond is “on a path to getting a new naming rights partner, which is a big development for the company as well as a commercial agreement with one or more streaming partners with respect to the digital rights that the company will possess.”
Diamond also holds the rights to 13 NBA teams and eight NHL teams. Judge Christopher Lopez has set a follow-up session for Oct. 9, with a final hearing on the reorganization plan scheduled for Nov. 14.
Diamond Sports Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group purchased the regional sports networks from The Walt Disney Co. for nearly $10 billion in 2019. The Department of Justice required Disney to sell the networks to have its acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s film and television assets approved.
