Back in 2022, Sinclair spun off the struggling Bally Sports regional sports networks (RSNs) into its own company. This new company, called Diamond Sports Group, filed for bankruptcy in early 2023 to help deal with the roughly $8 billion in debt the networks had.
Now, according to sources who talked with the New York Post, Sinclair wants to buy the network back but for pennies on the dollar. The deal is reportedly would see Sinclair pay just $850 million for Bally Sports, down from the $9.6 billion Sinclair paid Disney to get the networks back in 2019. Reportedly, part of the deal is for Diamond Sports Group to drop a $1.5 billion lawsuit against Sinclair.
The deal is said to be far enough along that it has been presented to creditors and is seen as the only possible offer for the networks.
Bally Sports is currently asking the bankruptcy Judge for more time to find a get-out debt plan. It is possible that they are waiting for this deal to go through in order to present it to the judge.
The question now will be, what will Sinclair do with the networks? Will they try to move some of the sports teams to its broadcast networks or try to save the struggling RSNs. Only time will tell, but if this deal fails the question has to be asked of what is next for Bally Sports.