Sinclair(Bally's Sport) nearing a deal for NBA streaming rights for direct to consumer offering

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Who tf is loaning them $450M??? And why would you give a company that tried (and succeeded?) to go bankrupt, a loan?

495 is not 450.
 

MplsGopher said:
Who tf is loaning them $450M??? And why would you give a company that tried (and succeeded?) to go bankrupt, a loan?

495 is not 450.
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as close as I can tell, the people who are owed money by Diamond - at least some of them - now believe that Diamond has a legitimate chance of surviving as an ongoing business. the Amazon deal seems to be significant (even though Amazon will only have streaming rights to 5 teams). there are some people who think this is a first step for Amazon to invest more money in Diamond - but that all hinges on getting streaming deals with more teams.

and you are talking about two different pools of money. the $450m is new financing meant to keep the company operating. the $495m is a settlement with Sinclair. as noted in the article, Diamond was suing Sinclair, claiming that Sinclair didn't meet its contractual obligations to Diamond. under this new agreement, Diamond is dropping the lawsuit and Sinclair is paying Diamond $495m to settle the dispute. (as in, "here's some money - now go away..")

also noted in the article - because the new agreements, Diamond will now retain rights to its NBA and NHL teams after the 23-24 season. but as of now, all of its agreements with MLB teams end after the 2024 season.
 

Diamond adds literally no value other than as nothing more than a container of the rights.

Amazon should just buy the rights. It’s not like Diamond does anything.
 

an update on the Diamond saga - from Sportico:


Diamond Sports - the operator of the 19 Bally Sports-branded RSNs has submitted its official reorganization plan to the Houston court that oversees the case.

Diamond attorneys filed the 91-page re-org plan to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, with an eye toward an April 17 hearing in front of Judge Christopher Lopez.

As part of the proposed re-org, Diamond will extricate itself from the legacy naming-rights deal with Bally’s Corp. that its parent company, Sinclair Broadcasting, inked on Nov. 18, 2020.

According to the disclosure document, under the terms of Diamond’s $495 million settlement with Sinclair, Bally’s commercial agreement “will be rejected, and Bally’s will release and waive any claims against Diamond, including any claims for rejection damages.”

That said, Diamond may “continue to use the Bally’s trade name (at no cost to Diamond) through the end of the 2024 MLB season.”

Among the most pressing matters of business is to nail down long-term affiliate deals with its three biggest distributors: DirecTV, Charter and Comcast. Per the disclosure doc, “approximately 81%” of Diamond’s distribution revenue is derived from those three operators, which together serve some 39.5 million domestic video subscribers.

As Diamond noted in Friday’s filing, cord-cutting has robbed the RSNs of 22 million subscribers, or 35% of the company’s customer base, since 2019.
 

So the only way to watch the Twins is if you have cable or satellite? It won't be available to stream through the Bally's app or any other?
 


Is any of this stuff connected with none of the Twins Grapefruit League games being broadcast in any format so far?
 

Slim Tubby said:
So the only way to watch the Twins is if you have cable or satellite?
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That’s how it has been.

I don’t think there is a single Streaming Live TV provider in the country that carries BSN?

Slim Tubby said:
It won't be available to stream through the Bally's app or any other?
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The standalone option I believe died when the mess all went down. Now there’s some kind of Amazon Prime deal. Who tf knows.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Among the most pressing matters of business is to nail down long-term affiliate deals with its three biggest distributors: DirecTV, Charter and Comcast. Per the disclosure doc, “approximately 81%” of Diamond’s distribution revenue is derived from those three operators, which together serve some 39.5 million domestic video subscribers.
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My counsel to those three would be: F em.

You know this is a one year thing. You know that people didn’t drop YTTV when they cut BSN (or FSN, if they ever did carry BSN at all I can’t remember). Same here: people won’t drop their current live TV package just because it no longer includes FSN.
 

Slim Tubby said:
So the only way to watch the Twins is if you have cable or satellite? It won't be available to stream through the Bally's app or any other?
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Fubo or Directv Stream are the streaming options. I've tried Fubo and it wasn't bad except it kept saying I was in the wrong city but I think that's my isp's issue.
 



Ope3 said:
Is any of this stuff connected with none of the Twins Grapefruit League games being broadcast in any format so far?
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Yes and no. Bsn is being lazy / cheap.
 

howeda7 said:
Yes and no. Bsn is being lazy / cheap.
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Feels like they could just use robo cameras and the radio feed to just put something on. For Spring Training, nobody really cares about production values. I would think they could get some ad revenue to more than make it pay for itself.

Just seems odd, but I guess if they are going belly up anyway no incentive to try to make few bucks.
 

howeda7 said:
Fubo or Directv Stream are the streaming options. I've tried Fubo and it wasn't bad except it kept saying I was in the wrong city but I think that's my isp's issue.
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Thanks...I cancelled Direct TV last November and went 100% streaming. I always just assumed the Twins would be available through the Bally's app. What a disaster for fans and MLB.
 

I would love to know what went down behind the scenes with the Twins. when Provus came out and said there would be no blackouts, at that point it appeared that the Twins were going to go the same route as the Padres and have MLB take over the TV deal with streaming through MLB. and then ---- something happened, and they went back to Diamond. Next year......who knows?

a couple of notes:
--Diamond/Bally under the re-organization maintains its contracts with NBA and NHL teams after the current season. all of the MLB teams are on 1-year deals. So - assuming they work out all of the financial questions - Diamond plans to continue operating its RSN's - including BSN, which would still have the Wolves and Wild on cable TV and satellite. Streaming is a separate issue - depends on what happens with Amazon.

--the naming-rights deal between Diamond and Bally ends with the current seasons, so assuming there is still a MN-based RSN next year, it will not be called Bally - it will have a new name. Could just be Diamond Sports or maybe they can find another naming-rights sponsor. the whole idea with Bally was that it would be tied into betting somehow, but that never materialized.
 



Slim Tubby said:
Thanks...I cancelled Direct TV last November and went 100% streaming. I always just assumed the Twins would be available through the Bally's app. What a disaster for fans and MLB.
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There's no good explanation for why they didn't let Bally's have streaming rights since it's a one year deal except that MLB told them not to. But that's not much of an explanation.

Does your 100% streaming include YouTube TV/Hulu Live? If so, Fubo/DirecTV stream are about the same price.
 

howeda7 said:
There's no good explanation for why they didn't let Bally's have streaming rights since it's a one year deal except that MLB told them not to. But that's not much of an explanation.

Does your 100% streaming include YouTube TV/Hulu Live? If so, Fubo/DirecTV stream are about the same price.
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Youtubetv is $73 per month.

Directtv - $116 per month if you want regional sports.

Fubo - $90 to include regional sports.

Hulu - $77 per month.

I am a YT TV user. If I need to watch Ballys sports, definitely would go with the Fubo option
 

howeda7 said:
There's no good explanation for why they didn't let Bally's have streaming rights since it's a one year deal except that MLB told them not to. But that's not much of an explanation.

Does your 100% streaming include YouTube TV/Hulu Live? If so, Fubo/DirecTV stream are about the same price.
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I do have Hulu+Live TV. I'll have to check into it.
 

howeda7 said:
Does your 100% streaming include YouTube TV/Hulu Live? If so, Fubo/DirecTV stream are about the same price.
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But probably nowhere near as good of quality.

I tried AT&T TV once, when that was the brand it was using, and it was an absolute trash heap in terms of streaming quality. That was a quick cancel. Have not tried Fubo.

YTTV and Hulu Live are excellent.
 

This is why this stuff isn't going away.

 


Or they signed up and forgot to cancel. It's like $10/mo? Probably goes unnoticed on the credit card statement.

They sure as hell aren't going to send an email like "hey you haven't logged in in 6 months! Do you want to cancel?"
 

Update on Diamond Sports - from The Athletic:

In a quick hearing on Wednesday, Judge Chris Lopez allowed DSG (Diamond Sports Group) to continue working on an Amazon-backed plan introduced in January, one Diamond believes can save it from liquidation.

Lopez approved what’s called a disclosure statement — an outline, essentially, of what Diamond intends to do, which includes the help of $450 million in financing.

From here, the biggest step is the actual confirmation of the plan. That hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. CT on June 18. Any objections are to be filed by 4 p.m. on May 22.

Last week, all three partner leagues— baseball, basketball, and hockey — told the court they were reserving their rights, a means of self-protection as the process goes forward.

“MLB and the Clubs have expressed serious concerns to the Debtors and their advisors about the assumptions underlying the Debtors’ business plan,” the league wrote in its filing, adding that “MLB and the Clubs question whether the Debtors will be able to demonstrate to the Court that confirmation of the Plan is not likely to be followed by the liquidation, or further financial reorganization, of the Debtors … ”**
Diamond has told the court that its subscribers dropped by 35 percent from 2019 to late February. Experts in January were dubious of projections Diamond offered as to its potential growth coming out of bankruptcy.

**(in other words, Major League Baseball thinks that Diamond's plan is a crock of dung.....)
 

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