Diamond Sports Group (DSG), the US regional sports network operator slowly emerging from financial trouble, has submitted a plan through which it intends to abandon broadcast rights for 11 of 12 Major League Baseball franchises.
DSG currently has contracts in place with a dozen teams but told a court it would only carry on as a local channel distributor of one - the Atlanta Braves.
Deals with the following teams would be dropped or allowed to expire: the Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins, and Texas Rangers.
Five of those teams - the Angels, Reds, Cardinals, Royals, and Marlins - could take legal action if DSG drops the deals.
ESPN has reported a DSG source as saying that deals with the 11 sides could still be struck, however, and that proposals have been submitted to each of them.
Publicly, the broadcast operator has said: “This marks an important step forward for Diamond with the filing of a baseline plan to enable us to emerge from bankruptcy as a viable, go-forward business before year-end. We have delivered proposals to and remain in discussions with our MLB team partners around go-forward plans.
“We firmly believe that through our linear and digital offerings we have created the best economic and fan-friendly engine for all of our team partners."
DSG first went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reorganization proceedings in March 2023, and over recent months has been renegotiating its various local deals with a wide range of US sports teams.
In early September, it unveiled new deals covering its NBA (basketball) and NHL (ice hockey) partners - although dropping the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans - while late July saw a new agreement with media giant Comcast announced, after a months-long dispute.
The terms of the deal state that DSG must emerge from bankruptcy by April 1, 2025.
MLB, however, has been a consistent opponent of DSG’s attempts to emerge from bankruptcy, decrying the lack of clarity the consistently embattled local broadcast landscape has and its effect on the franchises.
The league and DSG have long been locked in a bitter struggle, with the former lamenting the latter’s financial situation that has forced the league to take over local broadcast rights and production for a number of its franchises.
MLB has already been forced to step in and take over the distribution and production of games played by the San Diego Padres and the Arizona Diamondbacks after those teams failed to agree to new DSG deals when their contracts expired last year.
The DSG-Comcast agreement, meanwhile, has seen DSG's slate of Bally Sports channels return to Comcast's broadcast carrier Xfinity, after a blackout of three months earlier this year.
A confirmation date for DSG’s reorganization plan hearing has been set for November 14 and 15, with a deadline for formal objections of November 5.
