Most NBA Teams Covered by Bally Sports RSNs Are Still Due Payments; NBA Has Plans in Place if Payments are Missed
Most NBA Teams Covered by Bally Sports RSNs Are Still Due Payments; NBA Has Plans in Place if Payments are Missed
The New Orleans Pelicans can breathe a sigh of relief. According to Sports Business Journal, the team was the first NBA club to receive its scheduled broadcast rights fee payment from Diamond Sports Group (DSG), the embattled company responsible for owning and operating 19 Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks (RSNs) around the country. The Pelicans got their payment on Sept. 1, meaning their games should be on Bally Sports New Orleans and streaming on Bally Sports+ all season.
The majority of the other 14 NBA teams that Diamond holds the rights to are due to receive their payments from the company on Oct. 1 or Nov. 1. Those aren’t the only deadlines the company faces either; it has until Sept. 30 to submit its reorganization plan in bankruptcy court to prove that it has a viable path to restructure its debt and get back into the black.
Diamond has been in bankruptcy court since March, attempting to resolve a debt load of more than $8 billion. The company has gone several rounds with Major League Baseball over the summer, as that league is eager to stop doing business with DSG and pull all of its teams away from RSNs if it can. The NBA has been more patient and even signed a new broadcasting deal with the company in February. However, that contract contains several escape clauses for the league, including a provision that will allow the NBA to pull all of its teams off Bally Sports networks if Diamond misses a payment to just one club.
If that happens, the league has promised teams that their games will be streamed on the NBA app in the short term. It will fall on the teams themselves to set up a broadcasting deal with local TV providers in their market, and the costs of producing those games will also have to be paid by team owners.
“If we have to get to that point, I think we can pivot quickly,” said Orlando Magic CEO Alex Martins, whose team is due a rights payment from DSG on Nov. 1. “But, financially, there is no way in the first three to five years that we’d get to the same financial spot where we are today. We’d just have to slowly build a broadcasting business.”
In that scenario, it’s clear that the NBA would prefer Diamond be able to live up to its financial obligations this season. But DSG has already let one NBA team go this year — the Phoenix Suns, whose games will now air on local Arizona broadcast channels — and the possibility remains that more teams will be departing the struggling company before the season is over.
Diamond also made a recent rights payment to the Los Angeles Kings, so it’s clear that the company has the cash flow necessary to meet at least some of its obligations. But if it can’t meet all of them, the NBA broadcasting landscape could look very different at the end of the season than it does at the start.
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.