Comcast and Diamond Sports Group Resume Carriage Negotiations, Causing More Bankruptcy Hearing Delays
Comcast and Diamond Sports Group Resume Carriage Negotiations, Causing More Bankruptcy Hearing Delays
Bally Sports channels have been unavailable for Xfinity TV subscribers since the end of April, but there could finally be some progress in talks.
Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy case is seeing a new round of delays. The regional sports network (RSN) owner is still aiming for Monday, July 29 as the date for a confirmation hearing on its reorganization plan, but ahead of that crucial day, it has reopened negotiations with Comcast, one of its most important cable distributor partners. Diamond’s Bally Sports RSNs went dark for Comcast's Xfinity TV customers at the end of April, and the reinstated discussions have caused Diamond to ask for more delays as it attempts to sway creditors to vote “yes” on its reorg plan at month’s end.
Key Details:
- Diamond has asked Judge Christopher Lopez to shift the voting/opt-out deadline and the plan-objection deadline by a week.
- The request does not seek to delay the July 29 confirmation vote.
- Comcast is seeking to put Bally Sports RSNs on a more expensive tier of service, as it has done with other RSNs.
New filings made last week by Diamond indicate that the company is asking for a weeklong delay — from July 18 to July 24 — for the deadline its creditors have been given for filing objections to its bankruptcy reorg plan. It wants to give its new round of negotiations with Comcast a chance to succeed and to show it has done everything it can to come to a new carriage deal with the cabler before its plan is put up for a vote on July 29.
No similar filings have been made due to a resumption of talks between Diamond and Altice USA, however. Altice’s Optimum cable plans dropped Bally Sports channels at the beginning of July, and while Comcast is undoubtedly the bigger fish between the two cable companies, it’s another sign that pay-TV distributors are increasingly willing to sacrifice their relationships with RSNs to preserve their own bottom lines.
Diamond’s partner sports leagues have been more or less clear that in the absence of a carriage contract with Comcast, their support of Diamond’s reorg plan is highly doubtful. The confirmation hearing was originally scheduled for Thursday, June 18, but the leagues called for a delay in May after the lines of communication between Comcast and Diamond went dead.
“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 [Diamond’s reorganization] plan uncomfortable,” MLB’s attorneys said at that time, “thereby wasting time and estate resources to the detriment of MLB, the signatory clubs, and other interested parties.”
Why Are Bally Sports Channels Unavailable on Xfinity TV?
Comcast has adamantly refused to allow Bally Sports RSNs to stay on its lowest-priced package in their next carriage deal, which is the biggest sticking point between the two sides. Diamond is understandably dubious about allowing Comcast to put the channels on a plan that’s around $20 per month more expensive, but Comcast has followed that pattern with other RSNs when negotiating new carriage deals in the recent past, such as NESN and SportsNet Pittsburgh.
Audiences in the Denver area can attest to Comcast’s stubbornness in its negotiations with RSNs. Altitude has been unavailable for Xfinity TV subscribers since 2019, and since then two teams covered by the channel — the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets — have won their respective leagues’ championships in years where local audiences could not watch their regular season games with their Xfinity cable plans.
As far as leverage goes, however, Diamond needs Comcast more than Comcast needs Diamond. It seems unlikely that Diamond will have any choice but to acquiesce to the demands to place its channels on a more expensive Xfinity TV package, which could alter the math for Diamond’s exit from bankruptcy. But the only other alternative is to send that plan to a vote with no Comcast deal in place at all, and doing so could be the last stop on the long and winding Chapter 11 road Diamond has been traveling since last March if the vote goes against it.
Bally Sports+
Bally Sports+ is a direct-to-consumer streaming service that offers live games for those who want access to their local Bally Sports RSN without subscribing to a cable or satellite package.