Texas Rangers Ditching Bally Sports After 2024 Season, Seek New TV Deal
The Bally Sports saga is coming to an end — after 2024.
Bally and its ownership group, Diamond Sports Group, announced in a court filing that it had reached an agreement with creditors to resolve any remaining financial issues for the 2024 season. After that, Bally will be stepping away from broadcasting baseball completely.
Cord cutters was among the outlets that reported the news.
As DSG and Bally are still in bankruptcy court, a judge needs to approve the deal to move forward.
This means the Texas Rangers will get their broadcast rights back after the 2024 season and can begin pursuing a new broadcast deal for the 2025 season. One team — the Minnesota Twins — will reportedly get their rights back for 2024. The Twins’ contract with Bally and DSG was already up, so it’s not being renewed.
The remaining teams that have contracts with Bally and DSG, besides the Rangers, are the Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Cleveland Guardians, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Los Angeles Angels, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers.
If approved, it would bring to an end a year-long saga that saw the Rangers nearly get their broadcast rights back in June as DSG and Bally appeared unable to make their first rights fee installment after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
By August, DSG had paid the Rangers in full for 2023. The Rangers originally signed a 20-year, $3 billion deal in 2010 with Fox Sports Southwest, which was purchased by DSG and became Bally Sports Southwest in 2019. It is believed the Rangers were owed $111 million in 2023.
DSG filed bankruptcy in March, which put the owners of the regional sports network at odds with the MLB teams it works with.
After DSG skipped its April payment to the Rangers, the team joined a lawsuit led by MLB. The suit was filed to compel payment. A judge in Houston ruled in favor of MLB, did not reduce the money DSG owed those teams and ordered the parties to find a resolution.
Even with the rights fee payment, it did not improve access for those Dallas-Fort Worth viewers that subscribe to cable and streaming channels that don’t have deals with DSG, including Dish TV, Hulu and YouTube TV.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
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