Could the Arizona Diamondbacks soon have a new television home?
According to a report from Front Office Sports, lawyers for Diamond Sports Group, the parent company for Bally Sports, filed an emergency motion Thursday requesting that a US Bankruptcy judge reject the group’s broadcast agreement with the MLB team.
“The rights fee payments under the Diamondbacks agreement total tens of millions of dollars annually and increase annually,” the lawyers wrote in the motion, according to Front Office Sports. “Unfortunately, the debtors [DSG] lose significant sums on the Diamondbacks agreement.”
Bally Sports Arizona currently airs Diamondbacks game through Diamond Sports Group’s agreement with the team.
Front Office Sports’ AJ Perez wrote that Diamond Sports Group called the Diamondbacks’ TV agreement “unnecessary and burdensome.”
“The current costs associated with performing under the Diamondbacks agreement outweigh the revenues the debtors are able to obtain through broadcasting Diamondbacks games,” Diamond Sports Group wrote in the filing, according to Front Office Sports. “As such, the debtors have concluded that the Diamondbacks agreement does not fit within the debtors’ long-term strategic plan and therefore is not necessary to the debtors’ business.”
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Earlier this month, a federal bankruptcy judge ordered Diamond Sports to pay the full value of its media contracts to the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers.
Diamond Sports, which owns 19 networks under the Bally Sports banner, has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the Southern District of Texas since it filed in March. Diamond said in a financial filing last fall it had a debt of $8.67 billion.
MLB has taken over production of San Diego Padres’ telecasts after Diamond Sports missed a rights payment fee.
The group did make a payment to the Rangers last week, but is looking to drop Arizona, which would leave MLB to take over the Diamondbacks’ broadcasts, like it did the Padres’.
Front Office Sports reported that the next payment to the Diamondbacks from Diamond Sports Group is due on July 1 and that the group has requested a June 29 hearing on it.
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Reach Jeremy Cluff at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @Jeremy_Cluff.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Diamondbacks’ TV deal with Bally Sports could soon end