Comcast’s months-long blackout of Bally Sports channels is finally coming to an end. The two sides announced Monday that they have reached a new broadcast deal, which will allow baseball fans to watch their local teams starting Thursday, which marks the beginning of August.
The deal, which applies to the 15 regional sports networks owned by Diamond Sports Group, the bankrupt operator of the Bally Sports channels, allows fans to watch live local MLB, NBA and NHL games if they subscribe to Xfinity’s most expensive cable package, “Ultimate TV.” Xfinity customers who upgrade their subscription to the “Ultimate TV” package before Aug. 30 can get it for free for a three-month trial period, after which it will cost an additional $20 a month, according to a company spokesperson.
Comcast took Diamond Sports Group’s channels off the air in early May after the two sides failed to come to an agreement on a contract. The sticking point in the negotiations, the sources said, was Comcast’s desire to put Bally Sports’ channels in a higher tier, which significantly limited the company’s reach, the sources said. The fact that Diamond ultimately agreed to its proposal may be an indication of Comcast’s importance to Diamond’s hopes of emerging from bankruptcy.
Diamond, which has been in the process of restructuring under Chapter 11 for 16 months, had a confirmation hearing scheduled for Monday and Tuesday but asked a bankruptcy judge for more time during a follow-up conference last week, largely because it was close to reaching a deal with Comcast. With Comcast secured, Diamond hopes to close new digital rights deals with the NBA and NHL.
The company owns the linear rights to 12 MLB teams, and 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 (four of the five teams that Diamond also has streaming rights to, along with the Milwaukee Brewers) have the Bally Sports streaming app as an in-market option. But that’s not the case for fans of the Braves and Twins, two teams that could end up in the postseason.
“Signing a new broadcast agreement with Comcast, our third-largest distributor, is a critical step in our restructuring effort, and we are pleased that fans will once again be able to access broadcasts of their local teams through Xfinity,” Diamond CEO David Preschlack wrote in a statement. “With our distribution certainty, we are focused on finalizing an agreement with the NHL and resolving our ongoing negotiations with the NBA. We realize that time is of the essence with the basketball and hockey seasons quickly approaching, and once agreements with our team and league partners are completed, we intend to move quickly to file a reorganization plan with the court.”
