The beleaguered regional sports network (RSN) operator Diamond Sports Group (DSG) has had its renewed broadcast agreements with basketball’s NBA and ice hockey’s NHL ratified by a judge, ensuring that the broadcaster will showcase the 2024-25 seasons of the two major leagues locally.
The deal is comprised of local broadcast rights for 22 franchises (13 NBA and nine NHL) that are present in regions covered by the DSG-owned Bally Sports brand of RSNs.
It will not, however, feature the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans franchises, which the judge confirmed will not be party to the new one-year broadcast deal.
The 2024-25 NHL season will begin on October 8 while the NBA will tip off on October 22.
With a broadcast agreement in place, DSG will look to leverage the newly certified deal to exit the chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings it has been undergoing since March 2023.
If DSG does not emerge from bankruptcy proceedings this agreement will remain a single-year deal, with the participants free to secure local carriage elsewhere for 2025-26.
The terms of the deal state that DSG must emerge from bankruptcy by April 1, 2025.
If DSG’s reorganization plan is deemed good enough by the bankruptcy court judge then the future of DSG may be secured, at least in the short term.
DSG is set to present its reorganization plan in November after securing recent carriage deals with Comcast and DirecTV that have energized the RSN operator and are possibly the driving force behind the NBA and NHL deals. A confirmed date for the hearing is expected to be announced by October.
Although the capture of the new deals with the NHL and NBA is positive for DSG, it has not been met with across-the-board joy, however, with Major League Baseball (MLB) once again the most prominent opponent.
MLB 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.
The league 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, with the league already most of the way through its 2024 season.
MLB representatives filed a reservation of rights against DSG that queried the validity of the broadcaster’s deals with the NHL and NBA over their lack of transparency (the terms of the deals are not public) and the April 1 deadline that it says will impose another offseason of broadcast uncertainty on the league. The 2025 MLB season will begin on March 18.
12 MLB franchises are still covered locally by DSG.
