Can I watch my favorite team? Is this the end of blackouts? What RSN mess means for MLB
Diamond Sports Group, which owns 19 regional sports networks (RSNs), has ventured into bankruptcy, a predictable development that will nonetheless have a major impact on the way fans watch games and the way teams profit off them.
Diamond, a Sinclair subsidiary that is known to viewers as Bally Sports, stands as the largest distributor of live sports within the United States — and it is in serious financial turmoil. The company took on $8 billion of debt to acquire the RSNs in 2019, watched as the rate of cord-cutting accelerated throughout the country and was forced to file for a Chapter 11 restructuring last week.
It’s a situation that promises to have wide-ranging effects, particularly, given the timing, within Major League Baseball. What does it mean for fans? For the future of live programming? For sports? Answers to some of the most pertinent questions — including, yes, blackouts — are below.
Which teams does this affect? Will fans be able to watch their games?
Diamond Sports Group runs the RSNs for 42 teams across MLB (14 teams), the NHL (12 teams) and the NBA (16 teams). The latter two leagues are navigating the tail end of their respective seasons, leaving time for this process to play out. MLB, however, is less than two weeks away from Opening Day, creating a heightened sense of urgency. But both MLB and Diamond Sports Group have been adamant that fans won’t miss any of their games.
Bally Sports broadcasts the Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers.
Diamond Sports Group’s CEO, David Preschlack, who was hired in December, wrote in a statement last Tuesday that the company “will continue broadcasting games and connecting fans across the country with the sports and teams they love.” MLB, in its own statement, wrote: “Despite Diamond’s economic situation, there is every expectation that they will continue televising all games they are committed to during the bankruptcy process. Major League Baseball is ready to produce and distribute games to fans in their local markets in the event that Diamond or any other regional sports network is unable to do so as required by their agreement with our Clubs.”
If MLB needs to take over the broadcasts, how would it work?
Some of the details are still uncertain. Some have questioned whether MLB has the capability to take over broadcasting duties if it comes to that, but MLB appears confident it can pull it off. The details are still a bit hazy, but the league recently started a local media division, fronted by Billy Chambers, Sinclair’s former chief financial officer. The short-term plan would be to offer streaming through its MLB.TV app at a yet-to-be-determined price (it’ll be cheaper than the current price to stream out-of-market games, according to a league source) and also air games on a yet-to-be-determined cable channel.
MLB would have to negotiate deals with cable companies to make the latter happen. That would take time, but a league source downplayed that factor, pointing to how long Diamond’s financial unraveling has been anticipated. Putting together games also requires a lot of employees (producers, camera operators, broadcasters, etc.). MLB, a league source said, might turn to a lot of the people who worked those jobs for Bally Sports in their respective markets, many of whom do so on a freelance basis.
So … what happens next? How long until we know where the 14 teams will end up?
A lot could happen really fast. Between now and April 30, 13 of the 14 teams under the Bally Sports umbrella are owed their rights fees, an industry source said, potentially forcing a lot of quick decisions from Diamond Sports Group and its creditors.
In order to remain in business, Diamond needs to maintain agreements with at least some of its teams. And in order to maintain those agreements, they need to, well, pay them. Skipping payments would allow said teams to break free from their contracts, as MLB commissioner Rob Manfred mentioned last month.
A breach of contract triggers a court hearing, and that process can take anywhere from a few days to a few months. While that is playing out, Diamond would be incentivized to continue airing games because it would be generating subscription revenue without having to pay rights fees.
But there’s a good chance that Diamond’s creditors eventually decide to drop some of the least profitable teams from the portfolio. In that case, MLB would need to step in. A league source anticipates that MLB will handle broadcasting for at least five teams in the very near future. So far, Diamond Sports Group has missed payments to the D-backs and, more recently, the Padres, triggering the contractual grace period that will probably lead to MLB taking over.
Can MLB really get the rights to the Bally Sports teams so quickly?
The answer to that question will be dictated entirely by what Diamond Sports Group decides to do with its portfolio. Long term, the company hopes to build a more stable business by propping up its direct-to-consumer platform, Bally Sports+. But streaming rights are needed. Diamond Sports Group has the right to stream for all 16 of its NBA teams and for all 12 of its NHL teams. But it can only do so with five of the 14 MLB teams — the Royals, Brewers, Rays, Marlins and Tigers, all of which are smaller-market clubs. It wants to acquire streaming rights for the nine other teams and eventually turn its platform into a one-stop shop for fans, where they can also purchase tickets, buy merchandise and place bets.
But MLB, sources said, has been unwilling to provide more streaming rights to a company that has not proved to be financially stable. MLB has no intention of also offering the rights to sell tickets or merchandise to Diamond Sports Group, essentially turning the company into a direct competitor.
The bankruptcy proceedings will turn Diamond’s debt into equity for its largest secured creditors. Those creditors will essentially run the company, and not securing streaming rights is expected to significantly influence which teams those creditors decide to hold onto and which teams they decide to shed. We’ve already seen the beginning of this play out with the D-backs and Padres. Other teams will follow.
Could this ultimately mean the end of blackouts?
Potentially. Here’s how it would work, in an ideal sense: As teams free themselves from their RSN contracts, either intentionally when their deals expire or unintentionally when they’re not paid what’s owed to them, MLB would absorb them one by one. At that point, it can air games, say, on its Extra Innings channel (the long-term plan would be to regionalize MLB Network) and also through MLB.TV for local fans, since there would no longer be a competitor in the local market blocking them from doing so.
It isn’t quite so simple, and it would require making deals with cable companies that also provide internet service. But MLB seems confident it can pull it off. In order to wipe blackouts out entirely, MLB needs to secure the television rights to all 30 teams. At the moment, it has the rights to zero — and that will be the case as long as Diamond continues to meet its contractual obligations. However, several sources within MLB and those knowledgeable on the RSN industry predict that soon teams will start to be shed, with Diamond’s creditors eliminating the less profitable ones.
How will all of this affect the product on the field — revenue, payrolls, etc.?
In the short term, it won’t have any impact; payrolls are set, contracts are fully guaranteed.
Long term … well, that’s what’s causing concern.
In the aggregate, major league teams draw somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of their revenue through their RSN deals, many of which are robust (for example, near the end of 2011, the Angels signed a 20-year deal worth a reported $3 billion with what was then Fox). Diamond’s financial turmoil — and more broadly the continual erosion of the traditional cable model — promises to alter the financial landscape of the sport. Teams are all but guaranteed to generate less revenue because of it in the short term — but MLB is hopeful that the trade-off will be long-term gains.
The league’s ultimate goal is to place broadcasting rights — both through the linear cable model and on over-the-top platforms — under one umbrella. This has long been MLB’s plan; Diamond’s Chapter 11 filing simply put the wheels in motion a little earlier than the league would have wanted.
When all games are broadcast on streaming platforms, which many consider an inevitability, the league would aim to create a direct line to revenue from subscriptions and advertising, while also hoping to strike deals with other streaming companies. Under a model like this, all the revenue would essentially fall in one bucket, and it would be up to the 30 owners — and the MLB Players’ Association is also going to want to be involved — to determine how it gets split up.
A league source, pointing to the rapid rate at which the traditional cable model is deteriorating, predicted that all 30 teams would fall under its umbrella within two to three years. But some league executives believe that highly profitable big-market teams such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, both of whom own their networks, would never agree to that type of structure.
Speaking of the Yankees and Red Sox, what’s the status of the 16 teams NOT involved with Diamond Sports Group?
Four teams — the Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros, Pittsburgh Pirates and, to a lesser extent, Seattle Mariners — are under Warner Bros. Discovery, which previously revealed plans to shed its RSN commitments by the end of the month, creating a completely different scenario. (The other 12 major league teams are with broadcasting companies that, at least for now, are stable.)
Warner Bros. Discovery announced in late February that it was planning to exit the regional sports business, saying teams had until the end of March to reclaim their media rights or the company would move into a Chapter 7 liquidation. The company, a league source said, has been a cooperative partner through the process. The expectation is that broadcasts for the Pirates, Rockies and Astros will be unchanged in 2023. In 2024, they’ll fold into MLB’s broader strategy. The Mariners, meanwhile, run their own RSN and pay Warner Bros. Discovery a service fee to operate it for them. They are expected to be unaffected.
For now.
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Max Olson
Missouri quarterback Drew Pyne has entered the portal as a graduate transfer, sources told ESPN on Tuesday.
Pyne is looking to move to his fourth school after stints at Notre Dame, Arizona State and Missouri. He’ll be a sixth-year senior this fall.
Pyne joined Missouri last year as a backup for senior starter Brady Cook. He earned one start, leading the Tigers to a 30-23 comeback win over Oklahoma while Cook was sidelined by ankle and wrist injuries.
Missouri brought in former Penn State quarterback Beau Pribula via the transfer portal this offseason. He’ll compete with redshirt junior Sam Horn and true freshman Matt Zollers, the No. 86 overall recruit in the 2025 ESPN 300, for the opportunity to start this season.
Pyne, a former ESPN 300 recruit, began his career at Notre Dame and started 10 games for the Fighting Irish in 2022. He threw for 2,021 yards on 65% passing and scored 24 total touchdowns with six interceptions while winning eight of his starts.
After the Irish brought in grad transfer quarterback Sam Hartman, Pyne transferred to Arizona State but appeared in just two games with the Sun Devils before an injury forced him to sit out the rest of the season.
Pyne played 211 snaps over six appearances for the Tigers last season and threw for 391 yards on 60% passing with three touchdowns and three interceptions.
The NCAA’s spring transfer window opens April 16, but graduate transfers are permitted to put their name in the portal at any time. More than 160 FBS scholarship quarterbacks have already transferred this offseason.
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David Schoenfield
There are slow starts, there are slumps, and then there is whatever Rafael Devers is going through.
The 28-year-old three-time All-Star for the Boston Red Sox has been one of baseball’s best hitters since 2019, posting three 30-homer seasons, three 100-RBI seasons and a whole bunch of doubles.
His first five games of 2025 have been a nightmare. It’s the early-season equivalent of dealing Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. Johnny Pesky holding the ball. Bucky Dent. The ball rolling through Bill Buckner’s legs. Aaron Boone. Just to name a few Red Sox references. Here’s how those games unfolded for Devers:
Game 1: 0-for-4, three strikeouts
Game 2: 0-for-4, four strikeouts
Game 3: 0-for-4, three strikeouts, walk, RBI
Game 4: 0-for-4, two strikeouts, walk
Game 5: 0-for-3, three strikeouts, two walks
Along the way, Devers became the first player to strike out 10 times in a team’s first three games of a season — and that’s not all.
He became the first player to strike out 12 times in a team’s first four games. And, yes, with 15 strikeouts through five games he shattered the old record of 13, shared by Pat Burrell in 2001 and Byron Buxton in 2017. Going back to the end of 2024, when Devers fanned 11 times over his final four games, he became the fourth player with multiple strikeouts in nine straight games — and one of those was a pitcher (the other two were a rookie named Aaron Judge in 2016 and Michael A. Taylor in 2021).
With Devers struggling, the Red Sox have likewise stumbled out of the gate, going 1-4 after some lofty preseason expectations, including an 8-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles in the home opener Monday. To be fair, it’s not all on Devers: Jarren Duran, Devers and Alex Bregman, the top three hitters in the lineup, are a combined 11-for-62 (.177) with no home runs.
But there is one question weighing heaviest on the minds of Red Sox Nation right now: What is really going on with Devers?
It’s easy to say his head simply isn’t in the right space. Devers made headlines early in spring training after the Red Sox signed Bregman, saying he didn’t want to move to DH and that “third base is my position.” He pointed out that when he signed his $331 million extension in January of 2023, the front office promised he would be the team’s third baseman.
That, however, was when a different regime was in charge. Bregman, a Gold Glove winner in 2024, is the better defensive third baseman, so it makes sense to play him there and move Devers — except many players don’t like to DH. Some analysts even build in a “DH penalty,” assuming a player will hit worse there than when he plays the field. While Devers eventually relented and said he’d do whatever will help the team, it was a rocky situation for a few weeks.
But maybe it’s something else. While Devers avoided surgery this offseason, he spent it trying to rebuild strength in both shoulders after dealing with soreness and inflammation throughout 2024. He didn’t play the field in spring training and had just 15 plate appearances. So maybe he is still rusty — or the shoulder(s) are bothering him.
Indeed, Statcast metrics show his average bat speed has dropped from 72.5 mph in 2024 to 70.3 mph so far in 2025 (and those are down from 73.4 mph in 2023). His “fast-swing rate” has dropped from 34.2% in 2023 to 27.9% to 12.2%. Obviously, we’re talking an extremely small sample size for this season, but it’s clear Devers isn’t generating the bat speed we’re used to seeing from him.
That, however, doesn’t explain the complete inability to make contact. Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters after the series in Texas that Devers had made alterations with his foot placement — but was having trouble catching up to fastballs. Following Monday’s game, Devers told reporters (via his interpreter) that, “Obviously this is not a position that I’ve done in the past. So I need to get used to it. But I feel good, I feel good.”
Which leads to this question: Does this historic bad start mean anything? Since the DH began in 1973, three DHs began the season with a longer hitless streak than Devers’ 0-for-19 mark, so let’s dig into how the rest of their seasons played out:
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Don Baylor with the 1982 Angels (0-for-20). Baylor ended up with a pretty typical season for him: .263/.329/.424, 24 home runs.
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Evan Gattis of the 2015 Astros (0-for-23). Gattis hit .246 with 27 home runs — not as good as he hit in 2014 or 2016, but in line with his career numbers.
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Curtis Terry with the Rangers in 2021 (0-for-20). Terry was a rookie who ended up playing just 13 games in the majors.
Expanding beyond just the DH position, I searched Baseball-Reference for players in the wild-card era (since 1995) who started a season hitless in at least 20 plate appearances through five games. That gave us a list of … just seven players, including Evan Carter (0-for-22) and Anthony Rendon (0-for-20) last season. Both ended up with injury-plagued seasons. The list also includes Hall of Famer Craig Biggio, who was 0-for-24 for the Houston Astros in 1995. He was fine: He hit .302/.406/.483 that season, made the All-Star team and finished 10th in the MVP voting. J.D. Drew started 0-for-25 through five games with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2005; he hit .286/.412/.520, although an injury limited him to 72 games.
But none of those hitters struck out nearly as often as Devers has.
So let’s focus on the strikeouts and expand our search to most strikeouts through the 15 first games of a season. Given his already astronomical total, Devers is likely to rank high on such a list even if he starts making more contact. Seventeen players struck out at least 25 times through 15 games, topped by Yoan Moncada and Miguel Sano with 29, both in 2018. Not surprisingly, all these seasons have come since 2006 and 12 since 2018.
How did that group fare?
They were actually OK, averaging a .767 OPS and 20 home runs. The best of the group was Matt Olson in 2023, who struck out 25 times in 15 games, but was also hitting well with a .317/.423/.650 line. He went on to hit 53 home runs. The next best season belongs to Giancarlo Stanton in 2018, his first with the Yankees. He finished with 38 home runs and an .852 OPS — but that was a big drop from his MVP season in 2017, when he mashed 59 home runs. His strikeout rate increased from 23.6% in 2017 to 29.9% — and he’s never been as good.
Indeed, that’s the worrisome thing for Devers: Of the 16 players who played the season before (Trevor Story was a rookie in 2016 when he struck out 25 times in 15 games, albeit with eight home runs), 13 had a higher OPS the previous season, many significantly so.
As Cora argued Monday, it’s a small sample size. “You know, this happens in July or August, we’d not even be talking about it,” he said.
That doesn’t really sound quite forthright. A slump, even a five-game slump, with this many strikeouts would absolutely be a topic of discussion. Still, that’s all the Red Sox and Devers have to go on right now: It’s just a few games, nothing one big game won’t fix. They just hope it comes soon.
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