Aside from messages displayed on your television and across social media, Comcast and Diamond Sports have been relatively quiet lately in their carriage dispute. It has been more than two weeks since Comcast dropped Bally Sports channels from their lineup, leaving subscribers across the country frustrated that they can’t watch their favorite teams like the Twins.
But Major League Baseball entered the conversation loud and clear Tuesday, filing a motion casting doubt ahead of a key hearing at 2 p.m. Wednesday on Diamond Sports’ ability to continue to operate its Bally Sports channels and emerge from bankruptcy in light of its lack of an agreement with Comcast.
As summarized nicely by the site Awful Announcing, and as I talked about on Wednesday’s Daily Delivery podcast, MLB did not mince words. The motion states, in part, that Diamond’s plan is hanging “by the thinnest of threads. Unless Comcast and the Debtors can come to a new agreement, it is highly likely that the loss of carriage of the Debtors’ broadcasts by Comcast, and the resulting loss of licensing fees from Comcast, will render the Plan unconfirmable.”
Awful Announcing reports that Diamond gets 81% of its revenue from deals with DirecTV, Charter and Comcast. MLB notes that while Diamond recently reached new deals with DirecTV and Charter, the terms have not been disclosed.
Even with a conservative estimate that Diamond used to get one-quarter of its revenue from Comcast, that’s a lot of money to miss. And MLB also points out that an infusion of $115 million from Amazon to Diamond is contingent on having solid deals with DirecTV, Charter and Comcast in place.
MLB says the Comcast dispute has triggered fears that Diamond will collapse and has caused the league and the 12 teams (including of course the Twins) that are currently shown on Bally channels to start making contingency plans to take over broadcasts as happened last year for the Padres and Diamondbacks.
“The Debtors should not be permitted to stumble through the restructuring process, inflicting substantial injury upon fans who have lost broadcast access without warning while simultaneously subjecting multiple sports leagues and dozens of teams to significant financial risk,” the motion says.
We’ll see how much of this has an impact on Wednesday’s hearing and, more importantly, what it means for the June 18 date that has been set to confirm Diamond’s restructuring plan.
