MLB facing local broadcasting crisis after Diamond bankruptcy

The Atlanta Braves don't have to worry about their local broadcasting deal next season. For 11 other teams, Diamond Sports Group's bankruptcy means an uncertain future.

Diamond Sports Group, the parent company of Bally Sports, filed for bankruptcy in March 2023. On Tuesday, the network announced plans to drop all but one of its local broadcasts, that of the Atlanta Braves.

This means that eight other teams under contract with Bally Sports next season, plus three other teams whose deals expired at the end of this season, need to find new broadcast partners for 2025.

Major League Baseball's attorney, Jim Bromley, claimed MLB was "sandbagged," having no knowledge of this plan before Tuesday's hearing.

The broadcasting chaos stems from The Walt Disney Company's acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019. That sale included 21 regional sports networks under the Fox Sports Net brand, broadcasting numerous teams in the NBA, NHL and MLB. Because Disney already owned ESPN, the Justice Department ordered Disney to sell off those properties within 90 days of the deal.

Those networks were sold to Sinclair Broadcast Group through their subsidiary, Diamond Sports Group. The Bally's casino group bought the naming rights before 2021, but by early 2023, Diamond was missing payments to sports teams and their creditors.

In August, Diamond Sports reached modified agreements with the NBA and NHL, where the NBA accepted a 30-to-40 percent reduction in its fees for the next season, and the NHL took a similar, if smaller, reduction. MLB may have expected a similar compromise before Diamond announced it was dropping almost all of its baseball team.

Now, the sheer number of teams without a local broadcaster next season may force MLB to create a national streaming package .

Eight teams were under contract with Diamond next season. Three other Diamond teams had deals expiring after this year. There are three teams whose local deals were dropped by Warner Bros. Discovery last season and three whose games were produced by MLB itself last season.

That's 17 teams in total with an uncertain broadcasting future. It may be easier for baseball to establish its own streaming service, perhaps in conjunction with a company like Amazon, rather than continue to produce its own telecasts or scramble for so many new local deals.

There's no guarantee that streaming will deliver the same consistent money as the regional sports networks did. But with over half of all baseball teams needing someone to broadcast their games, MLB may have no choice but to jump into streaming.