11:38am: The second payout is evidently not all that significant. Sanders reports (on X) that the Padres will receive roughly $17MM in total from the settlement, indicating the remaining-asset value is roughly $6.5MM.
10:06am: There were minor developments in the long-running Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy proceedings this week. Most notable is the revelation of a deal that the broadcasting conglomerate struck with the Padres last summer.
As Daniel Kaplan of Awful Announcing first reported, Diamond agreed in July to a deal that could pay the San Diego organization as much as $78.9MM to resolve breach of contract claims which the Padres made after Diamond dropped the team’s TV deal last spring. The Padres initially sought a $162MM award as compensation for the lapsed television contract before agreeing to the lesser sum in mediation.
That money has not yet been paid. The settlement calls for an initial payment of roughly $10.5MM, followed by a second payout worth a maximum of $68.3MM that’ll be determined by calculating the remaining assets of that contract’s value after the Diamond/Padres RSN network is officially liquidated. Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes that Diamond will owe the approximate $10.5MM payment by the middle of May. The timeline for the second sum is still not clear.
As part of the agreement, the Padres and Diamond agreed to drop all litigation against one another. The Friars have proceeded without an RSN deal since Diamond abandoned the contract. MLB has handled in-market broadcasting in San Diego via MLB.tv. The league covered 80% of what the Padres would’ve received — Sanders writes that the deal was valued around $60MM annually — for the 2023 season. Commissioner Rob Manfred has said that the league would not cover lost rights fees for this year and beyond.
The Padres are one of two teams which Diamond had covered but abandoned midseason. The company did the same with the Diamondbacks a few weeks after dropping the San Diego deal. It is not known if Diamond has agreed to any kind of settlement with the Arizona franchise.
Diamond continues to hold local broadcasting rights for 12 teams: the Angels, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Guardians, Marlins, Rangers, Rays, Reds, Royals, Tigers and Twins. While it initially seemed as if Diamond would disband after the 2024 season, an influx of cash as part of a streaming partnership with Amazon has given the company confidence about its viability beyond this year. That’s not entirely shared by MLB, which continues to express skepticism about Diamond’s long-term prospects. The Atheltic’s Evan Drellich writes that the bankruptcy court has scheduled a hearing for June 18 on the company’s specific plans for its $450MM in financing from the Amazon deal.
The Padres will be able to pay their light bill now
Do you have trouble doing that or something?
Fun to dig at teams that spend a ton of money to put a great product on the field. When you have no idea how a business works
Don’t trust anybody named “Diamond”
source: me and Cheetahs
And
Overpriced rocks.
Diamond Dallas Page has entered the chat.
Gwynning – Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” was written about Caroline Kennedy …. when she was 9.
Dustin Diamond was arrested and convicted multiple times, and was the outcast of the Saved By The Bell group.
How dare you impugn Screech, a legendary figure of American zeitgeist.
Still better than Pacers. Right Tommy?
Lou Diamond Phillips seems like an alright guy.
SJG – And Skin Diamond seems like an alright gal.
Total upvote for THAT reference!
I literally laughed out loud in a convenience store while reading this comment. Thank you.
I learned this lesson thanks to one Diamond Joe Quimby. It totally WAS the mayor’s fault that the stadium collapsed.
Fox Sports leadership is bathing in the cash Diamond gave them for the RSNs and laughing that they offloaded those things before all this ugliness. If I remember right Diamond wanted to buy the RSNs to add betting options or something like that. What a mess.
Does anyone know how to stream The Rangers in-market?
I haven’t tried but why wouldn’t a MLB subscription using a VPN work?
Change VPN to Miami, fl then it will work..
mlb reddit streams
Superbox 3. You can buy one on Amazon, just don’t use it k
just by a vpn
As these TV deals lapse MLB is going to collapse. Teams will push for salary caps and the MLBPA will threaten a work stoppage.
How many $20 /month subscriptions will it take to replace these massive TV deals?
“ MLB is going to collapse.”
I’ll bet money you’re wrong
It would only take 375,000 new month to month subscribers to make up what MLB is giving the Padres.
If they could end blackouts I’d buy it yesterday
Get a VPN. A cheap way to add security and see your team play.
Padres and Diamondbacks don’t have any blackouts now if you are local.
Except when MLB/Padres sell their games off to ESPN, then VPN doesn’t bypass the blackout. I always have to scratch my head when someone sells the same item to people multiple times. Just seems a little off, like fraud. I watch most games “tape delayed” anyhow, to avoid commercials, and so that my wife can watch them, too (she’s in bed by 6:30 PM every night, because she works early AM).
I’ve been watching the Pads via MLB.tv (on a Veterans discount program, too!) since about 2016 or 2017. I love watching games in person, like anyone else, but I’m living in the Pacific NW, now. Even when I was in SD County, it was tough to make time to drive an hour south to take in a ball game, so mostly I watched on Cox Cable (way back when).
But, yeah, VPN + MLB.tv solves your Padres viewing problems, wherever you live. (There’s also a Firefox add-on called “mlb.tv enhancer” which helps with skipping through commercials at the click of your mouse. ) It’s not even about avoiding the commercials as much as about trying to get a game time down to an hour, or an hour in a half, so my wife can see it before she has to hit the sack. We also skip thru mound conferences, pitching changes, umpire reviews, and before the pitch clock, some very … um … insecure, plodding pitchers who took 2 minutes between every pitch.
As long as the MLB can maintain the WWE-like facade they got going right now, with two or three major market teams perpetually remaining ultra competitive, and all the other teams paid to stay quiet and suck out loud, the MLB system won’t collapse. All it would take is for one owner to snitch on the rest for it to be over. That ain’t happening because they’re making money hand over fist.
two or three major market teams perpetually remaining ultra competitive,
==========================
More than half are competitive, but whatever.
I distinctly used the term “ultra competitive.”. But whatever. People see and hear what they want. Go back to the sandbox.
@soxcity dynasties and a handful of big market teams that perennially contend are nothing new tho. Look at baseball history as a whole and this is pretty plain to see.
It is not just about subscription cost but also ad revenue. For MLB you are likely getting $30 per thousand views. So if 50K are watching a game on average, you are likely getting around $150K from that plus costs for premier sponsors mentioned on broadcast. Likely $200K per game for a team like the Rays. So that’s $32M per season. There’s also pre-game, post-game, and any other specials. There is also click through ads. Remember each individual can be sent ads based on location and demographics. I would bet ad revenue for most teams can get to $40M+.
Streaming ad sourcing with demographics allows for a higher price than traditional cable, so that helps with streaming. You don’t get the carriage fees like cable does, but that is getting lower. Bally trying to jack up rates to cable companies is likely what got them in the mess.
With the RSN model, most of the teams got none of the advertising revenue. The Padres owned 20% of Ballys SD, so that would probably mean they received 20% of those revenues.
Not sure where you got those numbers for advertising dollars, but you can look at the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy case and see that DSG and the Padres were not getting even close to that much money from ad revenue. DSG claimed in the bankruptcy case that they were set to lose $21 million on the Padres broadcast in 2023. Obviously, not all of those losses came from advertising revenue shortfalls.
There was no local streaming with Ballys SD. Until last season, RSN’s controlled any local market streaming of games.
I would not doubt those advertising revenue numbers for large media market teams. SD is #27.
The WNBA is still around. MLB will not “collapse”.
A salary cap would cost the owners more money. Every league with a salary cap also has a salary floor which would end up forcing teams to spend more on players than they do now. MLB players make a lower % of league revenue than any other major sport because they have insisted against have a cap/floor model to the detriment of the players.
Or could they get a lesser cut because no other pro sport has 5+ leagues worth of development? Not to mention all the facilities in Latin/South America. MLB plays twice as many games as other sports. No other sport has anywhere near the overhead
There is no way the players cut should be a lesser cut than it is now but it’s possible because of how bad the MLBPA is at negotiating.
The costs of subsidizing the farm systems isn’t close to high enough to warrant the current revenue splits. The MLBPA keeps getting taken to the cleaners in negotiations because they lack the power to collectively bargain a salary floor like the other leagues are able to.
Announce the Bauer accuser being charged with felony fraud and extortion!
As soon as they announce the other multiple accusers in three cities, I’m sure.
@This one belongs to the Reds They already did that.
What did he do wrong? Just some rough sex?
Well, mostly he was “in your face” politically incorrect, and lacked the remorseful and differential attitude towards a certain self-righteous part of “the community” that they felt was warranted, right in the middle of the “me too” political movement. Bauer was at the wrong place at the wrong time, a time when lawfare intimidation overruled the law. (Yeah, the “rough sex” WAS the predicate, but it’s not something that his self-righteous accusers or someone in their camp hasn’t done. Anyone can become banned on almost any social media site for making logical, balanced analysis, if he/she/they/them assume that you support Bauer’s position. Don’t ask me how I know.)
Anyhow, with the value of starting pitching, I thought for certain that some team would take a flyer on Bauer. However, it hasn’t happened, and that’s very probably, because NO team wants to be on the MLB front office’s “hit list”, where the MLB is looking for an excuse to penalize that team. It’s like going to Marine Corps boot camp, and deciding the very first day that the best thing to do is insult your drill Sargent’s mom, grandma, sister, girlfriend, and maybe even question his manhood. Oh, one COULD do that, but most recruits have this sixth sense that it wouldn’t be a healthy thing to do, even if they were into pain and “rough sex”, too. I think that’s why Bauer will never play ball on a MLB team again.
Being charged means innocent until proven guilty.
Correction: one of the accusers, which means there were more than one accuser initially.
Where there’s smoke their is fire. Bauer is not a great guy, and his career in MLB is over.
“Being charged means innocent until proven guilty.”
I fundamentally believe that the girl (who was charged) is *more likely* to have been guilty of something than Bauer (who was not charged).
“Correction: one of the accusers, which means there were more than one accuser initially.”
And?
“Where there’s smoke their is fire.”
Tell that to Brian Banks, Shawn Oakman, Matt Araiza, Tyler Flood, the Duke Lacrosse players, the UVA Phi Psi chapter and the two guys Nikki Yovino accused. Also, didn’t you open your comment with “Being charged means innocent until proven guilty?” Which one is it?
“Bauer is not a great guy…”
So you know him personally?
“… and his career in MLB is over.”
Maybe that’s the problem.
Maybe that’s the problem.
=========================
That’s exactly the problem. Person A tells person B to give them $1M or they will ruin person B’s career. Person B refuses, and Person A ruins Person B’s career.
I couldn’t care less if someone doesn’t personally like Bauer, but it is hard to imagine people not seeing a problem with the shakedown.
Bauer should use an orange bronzer and run for public office.
Omg dude give it a rest. You don’t need to spam this nonsense on any and all articles to do with mlb operations.
Lmao or what big guy?
Or u and me are gonna rumble behind the football field after school harambe lol. Jfc grow up.
U and I*
At least it will be a grammatically correct rumble
Criminal or not (which is TBD) he’s a publicly admitted, documented violent sadist. This is a family entertainment product, so he’s never playing organized baseball in the USA ever again, drop it. Nor will he be working at your local elementary school or sesame street. He gone. Therefore there’s no reason for MLBTR to report on it either, since this site is for news about MLB players, which he’s not and won’t be again.
Already been determined. He didn’t do nothing!
And he admitted to nothing of the kind.
They reported the accusation, they need to report the exoneration just as loudly.
If Terry Francona hates him so do I.
preach harambe
A salary cap isn’t in the cards no matter how many times NFL and NBA fans bring it up. I could however seen a salary floor being agreed upon.
I watch the D’backs. The announcers you can keep
A salary cap would create parity, a concept the baseball purists (and owners) absolutely hate. The purists are just dusty old blue pillers. The owners only care about the money. Winning/losing is irrelevant.
Lol. Why would the owners hate a law to LIMIT their spending? You sound as dumb as UbaldoJimenez poster
Because the MLB makes more money with certain teams in the playoffs every year. This isn’t checkers soon, you have to think a little bit before you respond to my posts.
MLB has had a higher percentage of teams in the championship series than any other sport this century. The parity you mentioned is already better in MLB than the NFL or NBA.
MLB gave the Padres 1 payment last season according to filings in the DSG bankruptcy case. About $6.5 million. As far as I can see in that case, MLB didn’t have to pay them anything else. We also know from that case that DSG was scheduled to pay the Padres $56 million in 2023 and 2024. I remember a time when journalists actually looked into this things instead of just dividing the total $ by number of years of a deal.
The Padres appear to be on all the TV providers like DIRECTV and local cable that they were when DSG owned their TV rights and I assume they are getting paid for that.
While we don’t know how many subscribers they have to the MLB.TV single team package locally, we know from the bankruptcy proceedings that they finished 2023 with >300k. That would mean at the end of last season they were getting about $6 million per month in revenue just from that.
I am sure there is uncertainty about exactly how much they will make and its much more performance based with the MLB.TV subscriptions, but I can’t see where they would have lost any TV money. Or at least not much money.
Padres fans, what am I missing?
You pretty much nailed it BIL.
The Padres missed one $8.66 million payment from DSG for May that they defaulted on. MLB paid the Padres 80% of that one payment,
When DSG defaulted we could watch the Padres on all the same cable and satellite providers as before locally and they added one in Hawaii. We can watch the Padres on all the same channels as last year plus they added another in Las Vegas this year. You can find tht here – mlb.com/padres/news/watch-padres-baseball-on-mlb-t…
The new local streaming package with no blackouts is called Padres.TV now.
The only thing I see is that you missed that the Padres increased their market by 2 million people when Ballys SD went belly up.
I think that you’re probably spot on, as far as the aspect that neither the Padres nor MLB can accurately predict their income, and that’s a real problem for any business owner. Not sure about your numbers, but the upshot is that Bally/Diamond/Fox Sports figured out a way to stiff the Padres out of most the their contract commitment.
On the other hand, this is a real opportunity for the Padres, and they are on the leading edge (a.k.a. “bleeding edge”). The “push” media model (cable TV and similar constructs, with scheduled programming) has been dying for 20+ years. The “pull” market (i.e. the media YOU chose, WHEN you want it, at the click of a mouse) is and WILL become dominate, because of that “individual, human freedom” thingy. The advertising angle is still a problem, and has been since the first media company tried to monetize a website. People, particularly modern generations, simply WILL not waste time vegetating in front of a TV/computer/phone screen, watching something they DO NOT want to watch, as the price to pay for something they WANT to watch, absent monopoly control of the media airwaves. Anyhow that’s all digression from the topic.
I think the Padres will work it out, because for one thing, the Pads have been very successful in bringing in new and different revenue streams in since the opening of Petco, and in most cases, they are producing content and value that fans want, and are willing to pay for. (A 60 second infomercial, ever 3 minutes, not so much?
Remember that the Bally money was pure profit. Bally covered the costs and overhead for delivering the games. Who is covering the overhead for these subscriptions?
DSG doesn’t hold rights to 5 of those teams beyond 2024. I may be wrong, but I believe that is the case for all the teams. I will look at the bankruptcy proceedings again.
I do know that the Amazon deal was a one year streaming only deal for just those 5 teams.
Manfred didn’t say that the league would not pay teams for the loss of their TV contracts beyond last year. Not really sure where that claim came from. He only ever said that MLB’s central fund would cover 80% of any losses in TV revenue due to the RSN collapse. DSG was not the only one as WBD also dropped its AT&T Sportsnet branded RSN channels which I believe included the Mariners, who bought the channel outright, the Astros, Pirates, and Rockies.
At this point, the bankruptcy would dissolve all baseball broadcast rights deals for MLB teams after the 2024 season. DSG would still own the rights to teams in other sports, just not baseball.
Unless they own their own RSN or are one of the NBC Sports teams, all MLB teams are likely to be under the MLB umbrella in 2025.
I receive out of market MLB games free all year with my T mobile/Metro PCS cell phone service. $199 per year!
Hmm, T-mobile used to offer FREE MLB.tv with their phone service, back when I started using mlb.tv. I think I used it for three years before I switched to a different cell company. Not sure if they discontinued it, but you ought to make certain you’re not paying for something you could get for free.
Third year of free!
Yeah, I guess I don’t understand your post, i.e. MLB “free” vs “$199 a year”. What are you paying $200 for, your cell service? Anyhow, I’m paying $65 per year now for a mlb.tv subscription (1 team only), and I paid nothing when I had T-Mobile (all 30 teams).
It’s a $199.00 value.It’s $199 for a full season. Free for T-Mobile/Metro PCS customers.
Jim – I love it, especially now that I have two large screen Roku TVs.
It’s cool listening to every team’s radio and TV announcers, hearing their perspective on things.
The other day the Cleveland radio guy caught himself from making a grave mistake. He said “Ind ….. Guardians”.. And I enjoyed their discussion about the Red Sox as they were preparing for that night’s trip to Boston.
I have a big laptop and have games on all the time.
You’re right about the local announcers. I find the Mets are excellent. The Padres are hysterical every once in a while.
I am a Giants fan so I hear Miller, Kruk and Kuip.
Miller is going downhill, Kruk is non existent these days but Kuiper is dry funny. HOF worthy.
Uecker is awesome for his couple of innings.
The rest is meh unless somebody has a recommendation.
Jim – A couple years ago I would have recommended Eck, he’s a fantastic color guy.
I do miss Orsillo on play-by-play.
And we no longer have John Sterling to make fun of.
Sad that a broadcasting deal cost the Padres a superstar player like Soto.
Yeah but Padres got Cease and King from that deal. I rather have King and Cease than Soto and save money in the progress. Soto is a good hitter but a defensive liability in the field. Cease and King were awesome this week. Padres traded Thorpe (from Soto deal instead of one of their other top pitching prospects) to get Cease. Only guy they got back from the Soto trade that isn’t doing anything is Higgy.
@Vegas By “Higgy”, I presume you mean Kyle Higashioka.
He’s done quite a bit more than nothing. Only a week or so ago, he hit a home run the same inning in which he threw out not one but two baserunners. He also was in perfect sync with King for yesterday’s gem.
I would love for more Padre catchers to not be doing anything like Kyle Higashioka isn’t doing anything.
Like 6 months ago, some SD fans thought Soto was the greatest thing in the history of sports, while others of us continued to say that, while he was an excellent player, he was still only one player, and still cost serious coin.
While the original Soto deal was an abomination, this last one was a solid return for the Padres.
So the U/T updating to say they f’d up on their reporting again? What else is new?
Internationally, MLB TV costs me $AUD 50 a month. Blacked out of Apple TV and some of your nationally broadcast games. Lot of content but it’s high. Doesn’t exactly gel with the trying to grow the game internationally shtick. Netflix costs me $11.
That’s in Aussie dollars right, maybe 32 dollars American per month? still steep.
Yeah. Around that. It used to be a conversion of what you pay. With no game blackouts. About AUD30. Then they ditched the conversion and rounded it up to AUD 50.
It’s not an automatic decision. You got to think about it.
The RSN issue is far from over, this is nightmare for both teams who believe they are in a contending window like the Padres. It’s also a nightmare for agents of pending free agents and the players. They’ve put in their service time and things beyond their control are screwing in a very major way with the normal business of MLB.
RSN’s are supposed to be guaranteed current and future cash inflows to pay for guaranteed long term MLB player contracts. This is a mess that at least for the moment hasn’t spilled over to the valuations of teams if the Baltimore transaction is to be used as an example. It can’t be ruled out as one of the causes the LA Angels weren’t able to close a deal.
This RSN fiasco has been allowed to go on far too long, but Robby the robot is not allowed to thwart his large market masters cash cow.
Baltimore was relatively immune since they own their RSN which was also included in the sale. It’s a lot less risky when its all in house.
SFjack, I agree with most of what you said. The goal with a third party owning the broadcast rights was to stabilize the team’s revenue stream. Not knowing from year to year what that income is will be disruptive, even if the total goes up.
6 teams already owned or were a partner in their own RSN, the Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, Nationals, Cubs, and Blue Jays. 6 teams lost theirs last season between DSG and WBD. 3 of those, the Mariners, Astros, and Pirates now own or are partnered with another team in their RSN today and 3 teams are currently on deals run by MLB, the Padres, Diamondbacks, and Rockies . 4 teams are still on RSN’s branded as NBC Sports and not in danger of losing their deals although the A’s will lose theirs when they move to Sacramento. The Dodgers are on a deal with Spectrum. The Mets are on a hybrid owned by 3 entities. 5 teams will see their DSG deals end at the close of the 2024 season. That will leave just 7 teams in DSG limbo.
The Angels have different issues that are much bigger. They have multiple lawsuits against them including one by the family of Tyler Skaggs that could cost them a half billion.
For those who aren’t aware local tv rights are long LONG term contracts, the Phillies contract is 25 years in length as an example. Local TV rights has been the primary driver in increased franchise valuation
For the person asking where is the commissioner in all this, MLB has acted as a broadcast backstop for the individual clubs however Bally/Diamond is in US Bankruptcy court and they are driving the proceedings. This is a powerful court, behind only the Delaware Court of Chancery. When we say “we are nation of laws”, it’s the corporate law of Delaware they are referring. If you’re not familiar ask Elon Musk, he f’d around and found out, LOL
MLB revenues are a pie that consists primarily guaranteed local and national TV $$$’s. Yes ballpark revenue is big but it also comes with operational costs whereas TV $$$ is almost all entirely profit. This is especially true when it’s a 3rd party paying the team.
That pie has shrunk unexpectedly and without warning now and for the moment the foreseeable future to the detriment of multiple select teams. There does not appear to be any scenario where those teams are made whole or return to 2022 level of local TV’s $$. All those players under long term deal previously sign MUST be paid so if the pie has shrunk that means there’s less $’s as opposed to 2022-23.
The A’s will not lose their RSN if they go to Sac, it’s why they are going to Sac. They will however not be paid as much. Had they left for Vegas or Utah they would have lost it, that’s why they agreed to play in what is a AAA park. The SFG were VERY accommodative to allow the A’s to go there and share the park with the Giants AAA team, I wonder why…
Any legal cases against the LAA will stay with the legal entity that currently owns the team and would not follow to the new owner. If I had to speculate in no particular order, the dead $ on the Angel’s books, unsettled RSN and interest rates all were contributing factors.
The A’s will lose their TV deal when they move to Sacramento. NBC Sports could choose to renegotiate a deal, but they have been quoted in Sportspromedia.com as only being willing to pay the A’s a percentage of ad revenue if they move out of the Bay Area. Rumors are that they have been upside down on the TV deal in Oakland because of Fisher’s reticence to spend on players since it was signed, so its not probable that the A’s will get much if any guaranteed money for a 3 year stint playing in a minor league park.
Soon-Shiong was quoted in the LA Times, a newspaper he owns, saying that pending lawsuits and Arte Moreno’s unwillingness to have the liability follow him as you said as the reason he dropped out of the running for the Angels. There were other reasons mentioned including the stadium situation, but payroll was not one of them. I am quite certain that the 2 other groups that had shown interest dropped out fir much the same reasons.
If the Padres and Diamondbacks are any indication, MLB teams will not lose revenue because of the RSN situation. Other than the single month payment that DSG defaulted on, neither team recieved any further payments from MLB which means they didn’t lose any TV revenue after that. As a whole MLB will likely increase revenue overall as a result of gaining back streaming rights w/o local blackouts. Relatively small media markets like San Diego and Phoenix sold more than 300k streaming packages by seasons end after DSG defaulted. But anytime you have a subscription based model, like season ticket sales is, if you don’t perform your sales will go down. Revenue will not be as predictable as it was selling broadcast rights to an RSN.
Has towinagain reminded everyone this has no bearing whatsoever on the Padres’ ability to spend money?
Maybe not, because towinagain is currently on a sleuthing investigation to find Eric Kutsenda’s money bin, with a particular interest in whether Eric dives into all his money by performing a traditional dive or a cannonball.
Let’s give him plenty of time to respond, he ran out of tinfoil for a new hat.
Now for the rest of the story.
As part of the settlement, in addition to the initial payment of $10.5 million, the Padres also received the Ballys SD broadcast studio, the mobile broadcast equipment, and the fully paid lease on the building next to the park with 18 years remaining on the lease. That has a present day value of $63 million in total. They will also get a $6.5 million payment when the transfer is complete.
Because of this deal, the Padres will no longer have to pay MLB to produce the broadcast for them.
Was that something on your local news? Because I haven’t seen it elsewhere.