KJ Jefferson looks for an open receiver against Alabama. — Butch Dill/USA TODAY Images

Less Than a Decade Later, Bankruptcy Proves League Made Right Call with SEC Network

Fox regional networks turned into dysfunctional disaster when Diamond turned them into Bally's

Author:
Kent Smith
Updated:
Mar 15, 2023 12:55 PM EDT
Original:
Mar 15, 2023

In this story:

FRISCO, Texas – There once was a time, back before the official formation of the SEC Network in cooperation with ESPN that the logical consideration for the SEC in farming out it's non-headlining football and basketball games plus its other sports was to do so through the Fox Sports regional networks.

After all, if it was good enough for teams like the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers and Houston Astros, then why wouldn't it be a suitable home for SEC events that couldn't find a major outlet to pick them up.

Thank goodness league officials had the foresight to not wander down that road and, instead, launch the SEC Network in August of 2014.

Sure, the live look-in of an Arkansas vs. Creighton women's soccer exhibition match that launched the channel didn't exactly blow the doors off anyone, but now, not even a decade later, it was the smartest move the league could have made.

In the most obvious thing to see coming since your friend asked you to smell something and it turned out it stunk, Diamond Sports Group, which bought what most people know as the Fox Sports regional sports channels after Disney dumped them following the purchase of Fox a few years back, has gone bankrupt.

Upon purchasing the networks, Diamond renamed them to Bally's. Most people have never heard of Bally's because, like the Longhorn Network, it couldn't be found on most major television providers.

The outcry that a Top 5 market like Dallas couldn't watch its pro sports teams outside of the Dallas Cowboys without having to physically attend the game was loud and angry.

A downtrodden Mark Cuban even went on local sports talk radio and repeatedly stated that if he could do anything about it then he would. Unfortunately, the team was stuck in a contract and had no control over the group owning his Mavericks' television rights not allowing their games to be shown throughout most of the DFW area.

Imagine how well that would have flown if the SEC had made a deal with the Fox regional networks and eventually found themselves not able to show football and basketball games to the vast majority of their fans.

At one point, Bally's offered the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars on an app for $200 per year, but not the Texas Rangers broadcasts. In the SEC footprint, that would be the equivalent of paying $200 to get football and baseball, but not get SEC basketball included in the package.

Long story short, no one stuck in a market that has teams contracted with Bally's is sad to see this happen.

As for the SEC, conference officials again are left looking like forward-thinking geniuses. The money pours in at a level that makes schools in other conferences want to leave immediately while fans have access to every sport imaginable on the SEC Network.

Ås Bally's fades into the history books, the SEC continues to rewrite them financially.

And the sports world is a better place in both instances.