Diamond Sports Group has an agreement in place with the Rangers, Twins and Guardians, meaning Bally will plan to broadcast the games of those clubs this year, per Evan Drellich of The Athletic. The agreements are still pending court approval. The judge is expected to rule on these agreements February 9, per Alden González of ESPN. Drellich adds that the three clubs retain their streaming rights but each contract has a clause preventing them from doing anything with them this year.
“We are pleased to have reached agreements with the Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers that work for all parties and enable us to continue delivering high-quality, live game broadcasts on Bally Sports to dedicated fans through the 2024 season,” reads a statement from a Diamond spokesperson, per Drellich.
The Guardians confirmed their agreement with a statement relayed by Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal. “We can confirm we have reached an agreement with Diamond Sports Group for the 2024 season,” the club statement reads. “That agreement is currently pending court approval.”
It was reported earlier this week that the league expected Diamond to work out new deals with each of those three clubs and it now seems that the agreements are in place. The Twins’ previous deal with Diamond expired at the end of 2023. The Rangers and Guardians still had contracts in place but Diamond threatened to abandon them as part of the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, citing them as unprofitable.
The details still aren’t known, but the reporting from earlier this week suggested the clubs would likely be paid at least 85% of what they were getting previously. The Guardians reportedly made $55MM from their deal in 2023 with the Rangers reportedly at $111MM. Even if they are going to get lower fees compared to the past, a new deal could at least give them some clarity over their 2024 finances, which could then impact how they proceed with roster moves in the coming weeks.
Not too long ago, it seemed as though Diamond was going to be abandoning live sports entirely after 2024. But a couple of weeks back, they announced a restructuring deal involving an investment from Amazon, a deal that Diamond believes can get it out of bankruptcy. If the bankruptcy court approves all of these details, Amazon will acquire the streaming rights of the Tigers, Royals, Marlins, Brewers and Rays. Per González, the ruling on that restructuring deal is expected February 26, with Diamond then having until March 22 to finalize the details for presentation in court.
Diamond only had the streaming rights for those five clubs, meaning it couldn’t sell rights for the other clubs that it broadcasts on television. The Rangers, Twins and Guardians will retain their streaming rights but won’t be able to work out a new deal this year. For fans in those markets hoping for changes to the direct-to-consumer model, it seems they may have to wait another year, assuming everything ends up being approved in court.
Wow
Good news for baseball fans
Yes, more blackouts is always great news for fans
San Diego Padres?
If you live 8n San Diego and have cut the cord, forget about the Padres.
If I cant afford cable, I can’t afford to go to the stadium
“Wow” two articles in a row? You need another hobby.
gbs, you just fed that “stray cat” by giving it the attention that it craves. Just saying…
Drew
You insult stray cats everywhere with the comparison
Just seems like they went back to the same used car dealer that screwed em before.
So we should expect the J-Mont -> Texas news any day now?
Maybe, the fact that it’s for a year and he would sign for much longer. There is a chance they still don’t do a multi year deal.
This TV deal should have nothing to do with signing Monty. And if it did, a one year deal will also be a problem on a 6/7 year deal.
Do you really want the full Monty?
This TV deal is a major reason Rangers have been inactive. Rangers also are above the tax threshold which means a 20 million dollar a year contract would cost another 8+ million in tax plus draft pick penalty. I don’t think they make a big signing. Could be wrong of course. My concern is beyond this year. The loss of 110 million in TV revenue I would guess effects their ability to pay Seager Semien deGrom etc going forward. Mark Cuban in an interview didn’t think the Mavs could recover the lost TV revenue which should be a clue that the Rangers may not be able to either. Pay per view of some sort looks to be in our future for DFW sports after this season.
now pay the rangers their money, so they can announce they’ve signed Monty!
RIP Apollo Creed
Just watched Predator for the 1000th time the other day. His physique was truly ridiculous considering Arny’s was bigger. Carl weathers had an amazing screen presence. We are all getting old i guess
Agreed
You got a stew goin’, baby. RIP
You got a potato and a carrot
Apollo Creed has been resting in peace since the 80’s, how about RIP Carl Weathers…….
Who is Carl Weathers? We’re talking about Apollo Creed, chump.
Finally. This had been hindering these franchises from doing anything in the off-season.
These teams using that as BS since their billionaire owners could sign a guy to an 8 million dollar contract and not blink. The teams knew some money was coming. To use that as an excuse was bad. Teams like KC who will be horrible in 24 were spending so the Twins and Guardians could have spent some money.
You know nothing as Rob Manfred owes the Guardians $15 Million now
Teams still aren’t going to free up the check book until the long term situation is resolved.
Question: Does this affect MLB.TV in any way?
You’ll watch a Bally Sports broadcast when watching these teams on MLB.tv, as opposed to an MLB broadcast.
Not unless you are in one of the cities that were already allowed to sell single team packages that are not blacked out locally. San Diego, Phoenix.
I hope the deal with Amazon is more lucrative than the heavily-backloaded deal with Bally (20 years 3 Billion). Otherwise, Texas got ripped off for being stupid enough to not see it as a red flag of financial instability.
Does this mean the Rangers will have to find a new TV contract after this year? The current deal was supposed to last through 2034.
11 Bally’s/Diamond teams with no TV deal after this season. The 4 Time Warner teams looking for new deals.
That’s half the league.
The RSN economic model is broken. The future of the game will be determined in how MLB handles this over the next couple of years.
They should have handled it already. But Robby the robot’s large market masters don’t want to give up that tremendous advantage over two thirds of the league.
All these long term contracts make it very difficult as long as Bally is living up to the contract.
From what we saw from the two teams that DSG dropped last season, MLB was more than prepared.
MLB started doing the broadcast production immediately and neither missed any time on TV. They had contacts already negotiated with all the local cable, satellite, and streaming services they were broadcast on before.
Neither team lost broadcast money last season.
Last year was a one time deal. MLB isn’t covering lost media income this year.
MLB never said it was for one season. They said they would cover 80% of any lost revenue from RSN bankruptcies or defaults.
MLB only covered 80% of of one payment that Diamond Sports defaulted on to the Padres. They never even made a single payment to the Diamondbacks.
They only had to make that one payment because neither team lost any broadcast revenue
They did say they would no longer cover the lost media income at the beginning of this year. San Diego is cutting payroll for a reason.
Where? When? Because Manfred didn’t. He said only that MLB would cover 80% of any lost revenue. There is no press release that says that it was just for 2023. There was no interview where any MLB official said that.
San Diego is cutting payroll because getting under the CBT payroll every few years is how good front offices operate. It saves them money they can invest in other players later.
I wish I knew how the Padres TV stuff worked. On Direct TV Stream there is a channel for Padres games. But when there in no game it just has a graphic up.
When there are commercials during the game I don’t know who gets that money. Did Direct buy the broadcast and makes the money? Does MLB and the team split the commercial money?
I wish they would put other stuff on the channel even if it was just the talking heads from 97.3. But I realize that would be basically starting a network and would be crazy expensive.
You can pay extra on MLB.tv to get the Padre games local with no blackout, so I assume that goes to the both of them.
Don’t burn too many calories figuring out how it works, because there is a decent chance the team will work out a deal with someone else for the local TV rights.
At least, I assume that’s what they’ll try to do. Banking on streaming revenue direct-to-consumer doesn’t seem like a great bet. Even the WWE gave up having their own streaming app, and instead sold their Premium Live Event (i.e. Pay Per View) rights to Peacock, and now the right to broadcast Monday Night Raw live to Netflix.
The Padres on Amazon Prime might be a reality sooner rather than later.
Its a virtual channel and there won’t be anything on it when MLB games are not on.
Part of the problem for the RSN model was that all the other programming on those channels didn’t pay for itself. No live games, no money.
And Monty to TX in 3….2…..1
Not so fast..Sounds like they have a one year deal in place to me. Montgomery and Bora$$ are looking for money like he is suddenly Tom Seaver in his prime..I think that there is getting ready to be a wakeup call or two for his clients..
Wait wait wait. No streaming in 2024? Did I read that right?!?
You did sir..
So MLB is OK with 40% of its (allegedly dwindling) fan base unable to access its product because it likes the kickbacks from a handful of (incompetent and allegedly insolvent) monopolists?
I don’t know about Montgomery, but this probably makes a pre-hearing settlement more likely between the Rangers and Adolis García. Texas really doesn’t like arb hearings. They haven’t done one since 2000. So I can see maybe a two or even three-year deal in the works.
Makes sense Casey.
Texas now sign Montgomery.
So the Twinkies can still plead fiscal poverty….
Bye bye honey!
-Jordan Montgomery’s wife
I’m starting to think I need to become a fan of a team on the other side of the country. I can stream on MLB and go see the team once a year when they are in my town. Let’s see Braves or Dodgers, which should it be.
If you’re a Midwest mlb fan you can’t watch your baseball teams. They all share markets so we’re blacked out for every team. If you live on a coast the markets aren’t shared so you don’t need to worry about it. So sad
This is horrible for Rangers fans. Absolutely horrible.
Good they get the Bally money, but awful because it is another year I don’t have a way to watch them play. Wish YouTube TV had an add on option or that you could subscribe through the Bally app to watch the rangers. You can’t.
Same issue.
I love the smell of blackouts in the evening!
I’m so glad the Crew are done with this nonsense and hoping steaming them on Amazon works out as good as they’re making it seem and that it’s available anywhere as long as you have a prime sub, seems to make sense
And Rob Manfred didn’t lift a finger to help
He’s a PATHETIC COMMISSIONER!!!!
That he is sir..
Call the Beekeeper.
Twins – “Blackouts are gone!”
Twins a few days later – “They paid us some money soooo…. blackouts are back!!!”
Good new for Cleveland. I want no part of streaming games. If I.m forced to get a streaming package. I’m done watching mlb.
Us fans in North Dakota get screwed again. More blackouts. Thanks Twins from one of your loyal fans. Promises not kept again.