Massive news is coming out of court today regarding the future of regional baseball programming under the Diamond Sports (Bally) umbrella.
Evan Drellich of The Athletic is reporting that Diamond has just said in court that “it plans to continue broadcasting one — just one — of the remaining teams it has with MLB: the Atlanta Braves,” meaning that the other “11 other MLB teams (and 9 still under contract) with Diamond will either have to negotiate a new deal w/Diamond — or go elsewhere.”
MLB lawyers according to Drellich were “sandbagged”. One MLB lawyer, Jim Bromley added, “We have no information about what is being done. We’ve had no opportunity to review and now we’re in front of the court and being asked to make our comments.”
Diamond reportedly broadcasted 11 teams in 2024 with three of those teams including Cleveland, Texas, and Minnesota being on one-year deals. The eight other teams (other than Atlanta which Diamond says they’ll continue to broadcast) who are still under contract for 2025 and will apparently need to either negotiate a new deal with Diamond or find another broadcast partner include Anaheim, Cincinnati, Detroit, Kansas City, Miami, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Tampa Bay.
UPDATE: Diamond formally drops the Tigers and Rays
Evan Drellich provided an update to his earlier report about Diamond dropping the eight teams under contract for 2025. Apparently, only the Tigers and Rays have been formally dropped, with the other remaining teams being considered “joint venture teams” who fall outside the original bankruptcy agreement with Diamond. However, Diamond is still seemingly implying that those “joint venture teams” will still need to negotiate new deals with Diamond if they wish to stay considering how Diamond approached the Padres in 2023. Basically, Diamond walked away from San Diego who was also considered a “joint venture team” by not paying them which forced the team to reacquire their rights and find a new broadcast partner.
It’s an incredibly messy situation all around.