Diamond Sports Group (DSG), the US regional sports network (RSN) owner and operator, has renewed its carriage agreement with sports-focused live TV streaming platform FuboTV.
Under the multi-year extension, Diamond’s RSNs will continue to be available to subscribers through Fubo’s Pro package.
Through the Bally Sports brand, DSG owns 18 RSNs, which, combined, hold the local rights to 37 professional US teams (11 MLB, 15 NBA, and 11 NHL).
Fubo’s sports offering, meanwhile, includes more than 55,000 live sporting events annually, from RSNs, local broadcast networks, and national sports networks ESPN, Fox Sports, and CBS Sports.
David Preschlack, chief executive of Diamond, has said: “With the vast majority of our distribution partners in multi-year carriage agreements, Diamond remains focused on completing our reorganization and emerging as a sustainable, profitable business.”
The agreement with Fubo follows Diamond’s previously announced deals with Charter Communications, DirecTV, and Cox Communications, maintaining its cross-country reach in the US amid a time of restructuring for the company following its 2023 financial woes.
However, DSG’s RSNs were recently removed from Comcast after renewal talks collapsed between the two parties.
This led to the NBA, MLB, and NHL telling a bankruptcy court that DSG’s continued struggles could spell the end for the company’s relationships with the sports leagues - and subsequently the end for DSG itself.
Comcast’s deal with DSG expired on April 30, with the Bally Sports RSNs subsequently removed from Comcast services in a major blow for all of its covered sports franchises, with the NHL and NBA in the midst of season-ending playoffs and the 2024 MLB season having only just started at that point.
At the time, Comcast added that it would have liked to have continued hosting DSG but that multiple offers had been declined, including a unilateral right to extend the term of their prior agreement for another year, while DSG on the other hand argued that Comcast “refused to engage in substantive discussions” despite the terms it says it offered being close to what was agreed on in other DSG carrier deals.
Without Comcast coverage, DSG revenue may fail to meet the levels required to allow it to exit bankruptcy, such is the scale of the carrier’s influence.
Last season, owing to the bankruptcy proceedings, MLB had to step in and take over the distribution and production of games played by the San Diego Padres and the Arizona Diamondbacks teams, after DSG failed to reach new agreements with those franchises, fraying the relationship between DSG and the league.
