ACC Football, Basketball Exiting Bally Sports, as Diamond Sports Group Cuts Loose from Contract
ACC Football, Basketball Exiting Bally Sports, as Diamond Sports Group Cuts Loose from Contract
While the contentious legal battle between Major League Baseball and Diamond Sports Group (DSG) continues in bankruptcy court, other sports that the Sinclair Broadcasting subsidiary has done business with are preparing to strike out on their own.
According to NextTV, Diamond Sports filed a motion to reject its contract to broadcast Atlantic Coast Conference games earlier this week. DSG’s contract was with Raycom, a subsidiary of Gray Television, and it allowed Diamond to show ACC football games that did not appear on national networks like ESPN, as well as men’s and women’s basketball on Bally Sports regional sports networks (RSNs).
Raycom informed Diamond before its official bankruptcy declaration in March that it wanted to end the working relationship between the two entities. DSG agreed, and unlike its ongoing, acrimonious proceedings with MLB, the court filing from this week rejecting its contract with Raycom strikes a downright cordial tone.
“Recently, Raycom requested that [DSG] promptly reject the Raycom Agreement so that Raycom could initiate the process of seeking a new partner for broadcasting future ACC events,” the motion says. “The parties’ respective counsel have worked closely with one another in preparing this motion, and Raycom supports the [rejection of its contract with Diamond] requested in this motion.”
In all, Bally Sports RSNs broadcasted 43 ACC men’s basketball games, including matchups that featured the Miami Hurricanes, who made it to the Final Four in the 2023 NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. Bally Sports channels also carried 25 women’s basketball games and several football contests in the 2022-23 season.
These games will now need a new broadcasting and streaming partner. They may be picked up by ESPN, which owns the ACC Network. But ESPN already has a formula for televising the ACC games it wants to put on its channels, and it may decide the rights to the package of games owned by Raycom aren’t worth its time.
It’s possible that Raycom turns to its parent company Gray Television to broadcast the games. Gray recently entered into an agreement with the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury to air their games in local Arizona markets, though that deal was successfully challenged in bankruptcy court by Diamond Sports. There would be no such legal challenge from DSG regarding ACC games, however.
It’s been a busy week for Diamond, as the company had to decide by June 15 whether or not to make a scheduled rights payment to the MLB’s Texas Rangers. That payment is likely to be made on time, and perhaps part of the reason DSG has the money is because it has officially rejected its contract to show ACC football, and men’s and women’s basketball games on Bally Sports RSNs.
Bally Sports+
Bally Sports+ was a direct-to-consumer streaming service that provided live, in-market games without requiring a cable or satellite subscription. It allowed fans to watch their local Bally Sports regional sports network (RSN) without a traditional TV package.