Recently Bally Sports’ parent company Diamond Sports, let the deadline to pay the Padres pass and decided to return the media rights back to the MLB. Now it looks like four more teams may also get their TV rights back as Bally Sports considers not making payments to four teams.
Last week Bally Sports was ordered to make full payments to nine MLB teams that it owes money to. If they fail to pay, they will forfeit TV rights to nine more teams. These teams are Angels, Braves, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Guardians, Padres, Rangers, Reds, and Twins,
Now it seems that Bally Sports’ parent company Diamond Sports, is considering not making payments to four of them. The teams that are at risk here are the Twins, Diamondbacks, Guardians, and the Rangers.
This would return the TV rights to the MLB. This comes as Diamond Sports ask the judge to clarify if they can get refunds for games they already paid for after they let the TV rights return to the MLB.
Here is what Bally Sports wants the Judge to add to his ruling.
In the event one or more of the Agreements is rejected or terminated and the Debtors cease broadcasting a Club’s games, the respective Club shall pay to the Debtors all amounts previously received by such Club that are attributable to content that would have been received by the Debtors after the effective date of the rejection or termination of such Agreement, calculated by dividing the total rights fees due under such Agreement for the 2023 season by the total number of games that would have been delivered following the effective date of the rejection or termination of such Agreement.
This request for clarification is far from confirmation that Bally Sports will skip the payments to these teams and end TV rights. However, it does show that there is serious consideration of not paying 4 of these MLB teams that it owes money two and returning the TV rights to the MLB.