MLB attorney: Loss of Comcast as TV carrier ‘devastating’

Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff WriterMay 15, 2024, 06:11 PM ET

CloseESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.

Attorneys for MLB, the NBA and the NHL expressed strong concerns with Diamond Sports Group’s ability to emerge from bankruptcy during a status conference on Wednesday, less than five weeks after a scheduled confirmation hearing. Their uneasiness stemmed largely from Diamond’s inability to secure a new contract with its third-largest distributor, Comcast, which prompted the carrier to pull Bally Sports channels off the air at the start of May, leaving baseball fans throughout the country — most notably within the Southeast region of the United States — without the ability to watch their favorite teams.

“I think it’s important, from the perspective of Major League Baseball, to understand exactly how devastating it is to lose carriage on Comcast,” MLB lawyer James Bromley said in bankruptcy court.

Diamond has secured multi-year agreements with three of its four other major distributors in Charter, DirecTV and Cox. An attorney representing the company announced in court on Wednesday that it is also “getting very close” to securing a new naming-rights deal that would begin in 2025, at which point Diamond’s broadcasts would no longer carry the “Bally Sports” branding. But Diamond has yet to secure new linear-cable and digital-rights deals with the NBA or the NHL, two leagues that saw their contracts expire at the end of their respective regular seasons, and the Comcast uncertainty continues to hang over all of it.

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Diamond attorney Brian Hermann acknowledged that the company is “disappointed” by the impasse with Comcast but said it is “optimistic” a new contract will come to fruition before the June 18 confirmation, which would essentially mark the end of Diamond’s 15-month-long restructuring phase. But Bromley said “everything is up in the air” at the moment and…

Source link : https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40153860/loss-comcast-tv-carrier-devastating

Author : Alden Gonzalez

Publish date : 2024-05-15 23:14:10

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