MLB takes over D-backs broadcasts after ruling
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
A bankruptcy judge approved Diamond Sports Group’s request to shed its contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks, prompting Major League Baseball to step in, beginning with the team’s game against the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday.
Like it did upon taking over the San Diego Padres‘ broadcasts at the end of May, MLB will make D-backs games available blackout-free through its streaming service, MLB.TV, and will provide a linear cable option on different channels through Cox, DirecTV, Spectrum and Comcast Xfinity. Other providers such as Mediacom, Orbitel, TDS and Optimum/Suddenlink will also carry D-backs games, as will the streaming service Fubo.
A spokesperson for Diamond Sports said its contract with the D-backs — a reported 20-year, $1.5 billion deal that began in 2015 — “had financial terms that were not aligned with its long-term plans.”
By lifting blackouts, MLB stated that the D-backs’ reach can increase from 930,000 to 5.6 million homes in the team’s home television territory. Local fans can pay $19.99 a month or $54.99 for the rest of the season to stream D-backs games; the next six games, through Sunday, will be provided for free through the team’s official website and the MLB app.
MLB will use the same broadcasters, Steve Berthiaume and Bob Brenly, and are expected to deploy most of the same behind-the-scenes workers to maintain the team’s broadcasts for the rest of this season.
“This decision provides us with an opportunity to partner with Major League Baseball to produce high-quality broadcasts of D-backs games on current platforms, expand access to include streaming options, and remove blackouts that have been a fan frustration point for years,” D-backs CEO Derrick Hall wrote in a statement. “We have enjoyed our partnership with Bally Sports Arizona and thank them for the longtime partnership. But we look forward to providing unprecedented access to our exciting team moving forward, including a greatly expanded reach of new households.”
Diamond Sports Group, the Sinclair subsidiary that operates under the name Bally Sports, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 14 and has since shed two of its 14 major league teams. The company wrote in a statement that it anticipates “making all rights payments for the remainder of the MLB teams in our portfolio through the end of this season.”
Diamond Sports initially took on more than $8 billion in debt when it purchased the regional sports networks for 42 teams across MLB, the NBA and the NHL in 2019 and struggled to maintain a sustainable business as the rate of cord-cutting increased throughout the country.
Diamond Sports has continuously stated that it needs additional streaming rights — it has the streaming rights to only five of its MLB properties — in order to prop up its Bally Sports+ app and generate more revenue. MLB, however, has been adamant against providing more rights to a company that thrust itself into this position in the first place. The league has stated its hopes that teams are paid what they’re owed in rights fees but also envisions a future — perhaps as soon as the next two to three years — when most, if not all, broadcasting rights are operated under a national umbrella.
The D-backs and Diamond Sports were initially scheduled for a hearing on June 29, but it was pushed back 2½ weeks “due to ongoing and positive discussions toward finding a solution,” Hall and Diamond Sports CEO David Preschlack wrote in a statement.
In Tuesday’s court hearing, however, Diamond Sports attorney Andrew Goldman said the two sides were not able to reach agreement on a deal that would garner support from the commissioner’s office.
MLB has promised Bally Sports teams that it would backstop broadcast payments up to 80% in 2023, but sources said that won’t be the case in 2024, setting up the possibility of several owners losing significant broadcast revenue at that point. Long term, though, MLB believes controlling teams’ broadcasting rights will be the best way to maximize revenue in an increasingly digital era.
That plan will continue with the D-backs.
“As Major League Baseball has proven with the Padres, we’re ready to produce and distribute games to fans, including Diamondbacks games starting today,” MLB chief revenue officer Noah Garden wrote in a statement. “While we’re disappointed that Diamond Sports Group failed to live up to their contractual agreement with another club, we are taking this opportunity to reimagine the distribution model, remove blackouts on local games, improve the telecast and expand the reach of Diamondbacks games by 4.7 million homes.”
ARLINGTON, Texas — Bruce Bochy is in the final games of his three-year contract with the Texas Rangers, a span that began with the franchise’s only World Series title, but baseball’s winningest active manager isn’t ready to discuss if he will be back next season.
“Season’s not over. It’s something we’ll talk about when the season’s over,” Bochy said before the Rangers lost 4-0 to Minnesota in their home finale Thursday. “So I’m going to stick with that right now and see if we can win a couple of games here.”
Both Bochy, who turned 70 this season, and Chris Young, the team’s president of baseball operations, said they will talk about next season after this one is done. The Rangers, who will miss the playoffs for the second year in a row since that championship in 2023, finish with three games at Cleveland this weekend.
“The two of us will sit down and talk about where things are, what happened this year, where we’re going,” Young said. “There’s things that I’m sure he’s going to want to know about the future of the team and we’ll talk about it, like we did three years ago, and figure it out.”
Young, who pitched a season for Bochy in San Diego, was the Rangers general manager when he hired Bochy as manager after the 2022 season. They were coming off their sixth consecutive losing season, the longest streak in the half-century since the franchise moved to Texas in 1972.
At that time, Bochy had been out of managing for three seasons. He stepped away from the San Francisco Giants in 2019 after 13 seasons and three World Series titles, which followed 12 seasons and a National League pennant with the Padres.
“Just love him. He’s great. I love working with him. He’s been wonderful,” Young said. “He came here to win a World Series. He’s helped us accomplish that. And, you know, we’ll figure out what the future holds.”
Young didn’t have a timeline on how quickly a decision could be made after the season ends this weekend.
The Rangers (80-79) were eliminated from playoff contention Tuesday night when they lost their eighth straight game, but ended that losing streak the next night. They can still finish with a winning record, but would have to win two out of three against the playoff-chasing Guardians.
Bochy has a career record of 2,251-2,264 over his 28 seasons, with those wins ranking sixth among all managers – the five ahead of him are all in the Hall of Fame. No managers in the past 60 years have more than Bochy’s four World Series titles, and the only ones all-time with more are Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Connie Mack.
“Oh, I’ve really had a great time, and it’s as much fun as I’ve had in the game,” Bochy said of his three seasons back in the dugout. “I said this when I came back, you have a deeper appreciation when you’re out, especially for three years and you realize what you have, how blessed you are to be doing what you’re doing. It’s been a lot of fun and I still love it, and enjoy it.”
The only current MLB manager older than Bochy is 73-year-old Ron Washington with the Angels, though he hasn’t managed a game for the Angels since June 19 before he had quadruple bypass heart surgery.
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