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Earlier this year, there was a lot of talk about Bally Sports and its parent-company, Diamond Sports Group declaring bankruptcy. It happened, and DSG is now trying to restructure its commitments. But with that, DSG has not paid the San Diego Padres a scheduled rights payment.
The Padres are not the first to not be paid by DSG, as they do join the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Red and the Minnesota Twins.
A hearing has been set for May 31, for the judge to weigh on on the case and rule on what fair market value of the deals could be. But according to recent reports, DSG might be willing to relinquish some of the rights that it holds. It’s also very likely that DSG won’t pay the Padres their rights fees by the time the grace period ends on May 30.
DSG could walk away from every MLB team it does not have streaming rights for
Bally Sports only has streaming rights for a handful of teams, but it has broadcast rights for another nine teams which includes the Padres. Obviously, Bally Sports and DSG are able to make more of a profit on the teams that it has streaming rights for. And negotiations between DSG and the MLB teams for streaming rights, have not gone well.
DSG has promised the MLB that if it does get streaming rights to those nine teams, that it would pay the full amount of its rights deals to each team for the entire length of their contracts. However, the MLB believes that DSG is required to do that anyway, as part of their existing contracts.
Bally sports and its parent-company, aren’t willing to give up any of the teams that it has rights too. Which, who can blame them? Broadcasting local sports is quite pricey already, and the more teams you have, the more people you can sell Bally Sports+ to. But as it stands right now, that’s really only feasible for a small number of markets.
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