DSG makes ‘progress’ with Comcast on MLB deal

Baseball fans with Comcast subscriptions who have been unable to watch their teams for most of this season might be in for some good news.

Diamond Sports Group, the bankrupt operator of Bally Sports channels, said in a status conference Wednesday that it has made “substantial progress” on a deal with Comcast, a development that could get baseball games back on the air throughout the country.

Diamond, 16 months into Chapter 11 restructuring, had a confirmation hearing scheduled for early next week but asked Judge Chris Lopez for more time in hopes of finalizing a new deal with Comcast, as well as the NBA and the NHL.

“We believe that we have made substantial progress on resolving our issues with Comcast and we have the intention of fully documenting and executing an agreement with Comcast to broadcast our RSNs in the very near term,” Diamond attorney Brian Hermann said in court.

A spokesperson for Comcast declined comment, as did a spokesperson for Major League Baseball.

Talks between Comcast and Diamond previously broke down because Comcast wanted to place Diamond channels on a higher, more-expensive tier — a stance Comcast had continually held firm on. An agreement between the two sides could include fans having to pay more to watch Bally Sports channels, though details are still unknown.

Comcast, Diamond’s third-largest distributor, pulled all of its Bally Sports channels off the air at the start of May after the two sides failed to agree on a contract extension. Diamond owns the linear-television rights for 12 MLB teams, but Comcast is most prevalent in markets where the Atlanta Braves, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins play. Fans of the Marlins, Rays, Royals and Tigers have Bally Sports’ streaming app as an in-market option, but that is not the case for Braves and Twins fans. (MLB’s streaming arm, MLB.tv, is blacked out in-market throughout the country due to exclusivity provisions.)

Diamond had previously postponed its confirmation hearing by about six weeks, from June 18 to July 29 and 30, angering NBA and NHL executives who feared that uncertainty was creeping too close to the start of their upcoming seasons.

Hermann intimated that this latest postponement won’t last as long.

“It is not lost on the debtors that we need to move quickly,” Hermann said. “We have been moving quickly, and we will continue to move quickly to get to confirmation.”

Diamond had secured multi-year deals with 10 of its 12 largest distributors, but the absence of Comcast loomed large, greatly compromising its ability to emerge from bankruptcy. Of the dozen MLB teams under Diamond’s portfolio, three teams — the Cleveland Guardians, Texas Rangers and Twins — are on expiring deals. Diamond held the rights for 15 NBA teams and 11 NHL teams, but those deals expired at the end of the league’s 2023-24 seasons.

“The plan will be to come forward with a confirmation schedule that is swift and can get the company out of bankruptcy well ahead of the start of the seasons for the NBA and the NHL,” Hermann said in court. “I will also undertake on behalf of the company that if we conclude that we cannot reorganize the business, which is a possibility, we will similarly pivot quickly and [ask] for the court to discuss the best way to proceed from there. That’s not our focus today, but that is a possibility, and it’s not lost on us.”