Bally Sports and the Diamondbacks have until the 17th to come to an agreement or risk losing their TV rights. Now new court filings by MLB and DIRECTV make it look like Bally Sports and the Diamondbacks will not come to a new deal.
In a filing yesterday, both DIRECTV and MLB asked the court to transfer the Bally Sports TV contracts to the MLB or cancel them. Both groups said it would be unfair to make DIRECTV and other cable TV providers continue to pay for games Bally Sports is not airing.
This comes as MLB has started talks with TV providers to air Diamondbacks’ games for the rest of 2023. To make that easier, MLB is hoping the judge will cancel the old contracts or transfer them to the MLB.
Even though Bally Sports will reportedly soon lose TV rights to the games and return the rights to MLB, TV providers would still be under contract to pay Bally Sports. This would force DIRECTV and others to pay both MLB for the games being aired and Bally Sports even though the games are no longer shown on that network.
It was reported by The New York Post that Bally Sports asked MLB teams to take a 20% discount on what they get from their TV rights. This deal would have kept the Diamondbacks on Bally Sports and let Diamondbacks games stream through Bally Sports.
The catch was that MLB has the right to approve any TV deals like this, and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has reportedly blocked the deal. The MLB is offering to help any team that loses its TV rights and will even help cover any losses that the team faces by losing their RSN deal.
Bally Sports may also have to fight the MLB for its renewal of the Twins. After this season, the Twins’ contract is up for renewal, and the MLB is reportedly interested in buying the Twins’ TV rights. This comes from a report by the StarTribune.
Bally Sports is hoping that bankruptcy will help it cut the costs it must pay and get more streaming rights. Now the question is will they drop even more teams on top of the Padres, who have already lost their TV partnership with Bally Sports.
Bally Sports also has until the 15th to pay the Reds. If they fail to make the payment, the judge has ordered them to return their TV rights back to the MLB. So far, there is no word on if they plan to make that payment.
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.
For now, we will have to wait and see what Bally Sports does next with the Reds and the Diamondbacks. The question now is will Bally Sports pay the Reds, and will the judge rule in favor of MLB when it comes to the current TV rights.