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. Last week Bally Sports filed with the court to not to pay the Diamondbacks and said they will return the TV rights to the MLB on June 30th.
Now the Diamondbacks and Bally Sports have agreed to push back the court hearing and keep their games on Bally Sports for now.
“Diamond Sports Group and the Arizona Diamondbacks have decided to postpone tomorrow’s hearing due to ongoing and positive discussions toward finding a solution,” David Preschlack, CEO of Diamond Sports Group, and Derrick Hall, president and CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks, said in a statement acquired by Arizona Sports‘ Alex Weiner.
Bally Sports still has to decide if it will pay three more teams over the next few days. This comes as the Judge has ordered Diamond Sports to pay up or lose their TV rights.
The teams that are still at risk this month are the Twins and the Guardians. These teams are owed payments by the end of June. Lastly, Bally Sports has until July 15th to pay the Reds.
If Bally Sports fails to make payments to any of these teams it 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.
Earlier this month Bally Sports’ parent company Diamond Sports, also filled in the court saying that they would not pay Raycom for ACC college football and basketball games. This means the ACC will need a new TV partner this fall for the games that ESPN did not pick up with their TV partner Raycom.
Now it seems that both Raycom, who produces these ACC games, and Bally Sports have agreed to go their own ways, according to a court filing. No word yet on where these ACC games will end up in the future. We will have to wait for Raycom to make a new deal to air these sporting events.
Ending the ACC contract frees up money for Bally Sports to pay other contracts like the ones for MLB teams. For now we will have to wait and see what Bally Sports does next.