from Bill Shea and Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic,
If you have questions about the future of your team’s live games on your local cable, satellite or digital provider, particularly those on Bally Sports channels, we’re here to answer with what we know so far.
Diamond Sports Group, the Baltimore-based corporate parent of the 19 Bally Sports channels that air 47 NBA, MLB, NHL and WNBA teams, announced Feb. 15 that it would skip a $140 million debt payment due that day and use the month-long grace period as part of its effort to financially reorganize itself.
Many observers interpret the move as a precursor to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, though that is not a certainty. Diamond has $8 billion-plus of debt, incurred as part of parent Sinclair’s 2019 purchase of the regional sports channels, and lost $1.2 billion in the most recent fiscal quarter.
“Certainly more likely that they will file bankruptcy because they did not make the payment,” said Schuyler Carroll, a bankruptcy attorney who is not connected to Diamond. “But not necessarily that they will file bankruptcy. They are still continuing discussions with their creditors to try and avoid bankruptcy. But those can often be difficult.”
Diamond in a Feb. 15 statement said it “intends to use the 30-day grace period to continue progressing its ongoing discussions with creditors and other key stakeholders regarding potential strategic alternatives and deleveraging transactions to best position Diamond Sports Group for the future.”...
Here’s an FAQ on what we know about the Diamond Sports situation and about how watching your teams — and paying to watch them — may be affected. This story will be updated as news develops.
Will I still be able to watch my teams?
If a bankruptcy occurs and Diamond stops rights fee payments, the three men’s leagues — MLB, NHL and NBA — are putting in place contingency plans to make sure fans can watch. And in the case of MLB, that league almost seems to be hoping for this. Just how you watch, who broadcasts or streams them, and how much you pay after a bankruptcy reorganization is all still unknown.
The NHL and NBA are toward the end of their regular seasons and most rights fees for the 2022-23 year have been paid. But MLB has the whole season coming up. Commissioner Rob Manfred this week has been outspoken that MLB has a plan and is ready to step in and produce the games. And he sees a silver lining: Currently, most of the RSN deals with distributors ban streaming of the games (if you are a cable company, digital streaming can take away viewers). By ripping up all those deals in a bankruptcy, MLB can then package digital with linear TV....
more ($) plus other FAQs...
And yet the leprechaun that runs the league has promised a pot of gold and a cap increase of 1 million dollars even though no one is watching or can afford tickets anymore. What a trickster.
They should have charged a lot more for the digital ad boards, I guess. So all that to make the games look like shite, and they still can't make ends meet.
At the end of all this I just hope somebody has a paycheck for Ken and Mickey
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