Comcast Drops Bally RSNs - How to Keep Watching Your Favorite Teams

If you subscribe to Xfinity to watch your favorite team on a Bally Sports network, it’s time to pivot to a new service. Those regional sports networks are now dark for Comcast cable customers. Thankfully, you have several options to continue watching. We’ll break down all your options.

If you’re new to TV over the internet, check out our Cord-Cutting 101 series.

DIRECTV STREAM

Our top choice to continue watching Bally Sports is DIRECTV STREAM. It includes 35 of the top 35 cable channels. If you max it out, you can watch as many as 266 channels.

You’ll get an unlimited DVR and the ability to watch on 20 screens at once.

DIRECTV STREAM also includes all your live local network affiliates and offers important sports channels like MLB Network, NBA TV, NFL Network, NFL RedZone, and NHL Network.

You can start streaming today with a 5-day FREE trial.

Fubo

Beyond DIRECTV STREAM, the only other live TV provider to offer the full array of Bally Sports channels is Fubo. Unfortunately, Fubo just blew up its relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery, meaning many of the top cable channels have gone missing. Fubo now offers 19 of the top 35 cable channels.

Unlike DIRECTV STREAM, Fubo does not offer A&E, AMC, Cartoon Network, CNN, Discovery, Food Network, HGTV, History, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, TBS, TLC, TNT, Travel Channel, truTV, and WE tv.

For these reasons, we cannot recommend Fubo unless there’s a very specific channel you need.

Full comparison: Fubo vs. DIRECTV STREAM ►

Bally Sports+

Bally Sports+ has two plans: a monthly plan for $19.99 a month, or an annual plan for $189.99 per year ($15.83/mo pre-paid annually), after a 7-Day Free Trial.

In areas where fans have access to more than one Bally sports network, an optional bundle allows the addition of a second channel. The monthly total for two RSNs is $29.99/month.

With the service, you can stream your local games from 16 NBA teams and 11 NHL teams.

In addition to NHL and NBA, there are five MLB teams available to stream: Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Miami Marlins, Kansas City Royals, and Tampa Bay Rays. Diamond has yet to get approval from MLB to stream the rest of the teams that they own the traditional broadcast rights for.

Comcast released a statement that said, “We have been very flexible with Diamond Sports Group for months as they work through their bankruptcy proceedings, providing them with an extension on the Bally Sports Regional Networks last fall and a unilateral right to extend the term for another year, which they opted to not exercise. We’d like to continue carrying their networks, but they have declined multiple offers and now we no longer have the rights to this programming.”

Comcast says customers would automatically receive $8 to $10 per month in credits for the channels if they are no longer available.

In a statement, Bally parent company Diamond Sports said, “It’s disappointing that Comcast rejected a proposed extension that would have kept our channels on the air and that Comcast indicated that it intends to pull the signals, preventing fans from watching their favorite local teams. Comcast has refused to engage in substantive discussions despite Diamond offering terms similar to those reached with much larger distributors of ours. We are a fans-first company and will continue to seek an agreement with Comcast to restore broadcasts, and at this critical juncture for Diamond, we hope that Comcast will recognize the important and mutually beneficial role Diamond and RSNs play in the media ecosystem. In the meantime, fans in Comcast regions can access our networks through subscriptions to Fubo, DirecTV or DIRECTV STREAM or through our direct-to-consumer offering, Bally Sports+ for the teams for which Diamond retains DTC rights.”