The FanDuel Sports Network Thread

[MD TV 253]

Bally's coming back to Xfinity:

 

 

[nathannah 2401]

This channel just Will. Not. Die.

[NYAZSporty 123]

3 hours ago, MD TV said:

Bally's coming back to Xfinity:

 

 

Bally Sports is back, good news for sports fans...Bad news, gotta pay up a bit more from the lower tier plans to get it. No surprise, now let's see if Stan Kroenke looks at this & gets a deal done with Xfinity before the upcoming Avs & Nuggets season to end a multi-year blackout.

[Georgie56 3292]

And the Mavs are fleeing Bally Sports, effective this season.

[Yankees4life 558]

On 8/24/2024 at 9:58 AM, Georgie56 said:

And the Mavs are fleeing Bally Sports, effective this season.

Hallelujah

[SDHIll1980 99]

Another NHL team flees the Bally Sports roster, this time the Anaheim Ducks.  Fox Los Angeles formally announced today that it'll televise 65 games this upcoming season on KCOP, with the games also streaming on the Victory+ streaming service (the same company handling the Dallas Stars broadcasts going forward).

 

https://www.foxla.com/news/fox-11-plus-announces-media-partnership-anaheim-ducks

[Georgie56 3292]

The Mavs are heading to TEGNA (WFAA/KMPX).

[Georgie56 3292]

The Rangers are developing a direct-to-distributor “pseudo-RSN” model for 2025.

[Georgie56 3292]

Bally throwing their arms up with MLB (except in Atlanta).
 

 

[T.L. Hughes 881]

While this makes MLB happy, since they lost faith in Diamond Sports on account of how Sinclair ran it into the ground, I don’t see how this allows Diamond Sports to survive as a going concern post-bankruptcy. Dropping all but one of its Major League Baseball contracts leaves a major hole in Bally Sports’ event schedule during the late spring and summer, thus impacting ratings during those months and undermining any leverage Diamond may have in future carriage negotiations.

 

It would also potentially result in Bally Sports Great Lakes and Bally Sports Kansas City to close or merge into adjacent regional networks (Bally Sports Ohio and Bally Sports Midwest, respectively), since local MLB teams serve as their sole regional broadcast partners. (TBF, this is true for Bally Sports New Orleans since they lost the Pelicans rights, though Diamond has yet to announce its closure, compared to Bally Sports Arizona, which it shut down after losing all four of its pro team partners.)

Edited October 2, 2024 by T.L. Hughes

[tyrannical bastard 3931]

1 hour ago, T.L. Hughes said:

While this makes MLB happy, since they lost faith in Diamond Sports on account of how Sinclair ran it into the ground, I don’t see how this allows Diamond Sports to survive as a going concern post-bankruptcy. Dropping all but one of its Major League Baseball contracts leaves a major hole in Bally Sports’ event schedule during the late spring and summer, thus impacting ratings during those months and undermining any leverage Diamond may have in future carriage negotiations.

 

It would also potentially result in Bally Sports Great Lakes and Bally Sports Kansas City to close or merge into adjacent regional networks (Bally Sports Ohio and Bally Sports Midwest, respectively), since local MLB teams serve as their sole regional broadcast partners. (TBF, this is true for Bally Sports New Orleans since they lost the Pelicans rights, though Diamond has yet to announce its closure, compared to Bally Sports Arizona, which it shut down after losing all four of its pro team partners.)

Gray, CBS and possibly Tegna are likely salivating at the prospects of adding MLB teams to their stations in those markets.  Some markets already have stations or channels they could land on, especially in Dallas and Cleveland.

If the Braves deal falls through, enter Gray to swoop in and bring them back to "WTBS".... (since Gray now owns WPCH and it's associated sports subchannel)

 

Not sure about CBS (and their current situation) but Gray and Tegna are more than willing to work with the leagues to bring a partnership to their airwaves.

Edited October 2, 2024 by tyrannical bastard

[NowBergen 679]

Glad Diamond Sports doesn't fully own or operate in NYC.  Ouch.  By breaking the contracts, I would assume there will be some legal action too.  Does the entire group have much time left?

[atlnews2 590]

Bally Sports could still sign new deals with MLB teams, the teams will just have to accept less money (and they’ll have to be comfortable being in business with Bally Sports going forward) 

[TheRolyPoly 2358]

9 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

Bally throwing their arms up with MLB (except in Atlanta).
 

 

 

I can't wait to see where the Marlins now land. I wonder if Scripps Sports will bring OTA Marlins telecasts back for WPXM, though Scripps hasn't put local sports rights on any of their ION O&Os.

[Big Rollo Smokes 260]

The Athletic is clarifying that initial report, saying that Bally is dropping only the Tigers and Rays while keeping the Braves.

 

Bally's deals with Cleveland, Milwaukee, Texas and Minnesota expired at season's end. As has been mentioned already, the Rangers are going it alone with Tegna as their partner in Dallas-Fort Worth. The Guardians, Brewers and Twins can negotiate new deals with Bally if they so choose, but they won't be as lucrative.

 

Bally's other MLB contracts are what they call "joint-ventures" so they are assumed safe–for now.

 

(The linked article may be paywalled for some.)

Edited October 3, 2024 by Big Rollo Smokes

[T.L. Hughes 881]

1 hour ago, Big Rollo Smokes said:

The Athletic is clarifying that initial report, saying that Bally is dropping only the Tigers and Rays while keeping the Braves.

 

Bally's deals with Cleveland, Milwaukee, Texas and Minnesota expired at season's end. As has been mentioned already, the Rangers are going it alone with Tegna as their partner in Dallas-Fort Worth. The Guardians, Brewers and Twins can negotiate new deals with Bally if they so choose, but they won't be as lucrative.

 

Bally's other MLB contracts are what they call "joint-ventures" so they are assumed safe–for now.

 

(The linked article may be paywalled for some.)

The interesting part about the article (besides the major errors in initially reporting that Diamond was dropping all but one of its MLB team deals, rather than offering to do so as a leverage point, and suggesting all of its MLB broadcast deals, instead of just four of them, expired after the recently concluded season) is this quote:

Quote

 

Jim Bromley, a lawyer for MLB, said the league had no idea Wednesday’s news was coming.

 

“We had no information about what is being done,” Bromley said. “It’s unfortunate that we’ve been sandbagged in this way.”

 

Ummm, MLB basically telegraphed it might dump Diamond and acquire their team contracts (even potentially moving them to an in-house streaming platform similar to MLB.tv) because it didn’t have faith they would come out of their bankruptcy reorganization as a viable business. So, it seems odd they’d be shocked Diamond was willing to walk away from all of its team contracts (sans the Braves), or that it chose to discuss new contractual terms with the teams themselves instead of the Commissioner’s Office.

 

That said, given MLB’s position on its viability as a broadcast partner, Diamond offering to walk away from its team contracts if it can’t get more favorable terms seems akin to when David Zaslav said that TNT Sports “doesn’t have to have the NBA”, only to end up suing the league two years later after WBD’s offer to match the financial terms of Amazon’s NBA contract framework was rejected. It might sound like a means to ensure leverage in contract talks, but could readily backfire with the league leaving its offer, rather than taking it.

Edited October 3, 2024 by T.L. Hughes

[ehatt493 33]

Looks like the countdown is on to the rebrand as "FanDuel Sports Network [region]."

 

SBJ (paywall) mentions a court filing that mentioned FanDuel as the new naming rights partner: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/10/07/diamond-sports-group-fanduel?publicationSource=sbd&issue=cfeec20f2fe5410da0e31a3dc0440253

 

More notably, Fubo has already switched logos for the Bally RSNs, but they still call them "Bally Sports" when clicked on.

 

Also looks like, with the Pelicans moving to Gray, there's no logo for FDSN New Orleans, quite possible it's shutting down.

 

Additionally, they're already squatting on several Twitter handles. Not sure a timeframe, but quite interesting.

[tyrannical bastard 3931]

With only the Cavaliers and the Blue Jackets held by Bally...I mean FanDuel in Ohio, I could see both the "Ohio" and "Great Lakes" channels merging into one.  Baseball was the only thing that made them separate.

 

To think once upon a time SportsTime Ohio split from Fox Sports Ohio when the Indians were a partner in STO.

[SDHIll1980 99]

ESPN is reporting today that the Guardians, Brewers, and Twins will have their telecasts produced by Major League Baseball's local division starting next season.  They'll join the Padres, Diamondbacks, and Rockies as teams that will have their local telecasts handled by MLB.  More to @tyrannical bastard's point, this likely spells the end of Bally Sports Great Lakes.

Edited October 16, 2024 by SDHIll1980

[nathannah 2401]

All the teams involved have pretty much confirmed the same; the Brewers had press availability about it.

 

Thankfully outside obvious graphical changes, most of these teams long ago switched to employing their on-air staff directly, so there should be no changes in personnel beyond the usual post-season moves of individual talent. And cable carriage should be easy for the most part, as most providers never filled the space left by NBCSN, or will quietly plan to stick the coverage in the RSN+ slot until the Cavs, Wolves and Bucks end their seasons, then move it to the main channel.

It'll be nice now to not have to worry about Bally RTC negotiations any longer and now VPNs won't be needed for local teams just to sync the radio call with the TV video.

[Georgie56 3292]

On 10/8/2024 at 10:58 AM, ehatt493 said:

Looks like the countdown is on to the rebrand as "FanDuel Sports Network [region]."

 

SBJ (paywall) mentions a court filing that mentioned FanDuel as the new naming rights partner: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/10/07/diamond-sports-group-fanduel?publicationSource=sbd&issue=cfeec20f2fe5410da0e31a3dc0440253

 

More notably, Fubo has already switched logos for the Bally RSNs, but they still call them "Bally Sports" when clicked on.

 

Also looks like, with the Pelicans moving to Gray, there's no logo for FDSN New Orleans, quite possible it's shutting down.

 

Additionally, they're already squatting on several Twitter handles. Not sure a timeframe, but quite interesting.

It’s official. 

[TVLurker 198]

I cannot believe this pathetic, unintentionally hilarious rebranding is happening.

[nathannah 2401]

Even more confusing because the former TVG is now FanDuel TV, so it's almost like a bizarre return to the Fox Sports Net structure, except there's a 'niche' channel as the national one.

 

And just noticing the abbreviation for FDS...I (and them) will probably grow tired of the references to this consumer product over the next few weeks. Maybe there will even be a lawsuit! 

Edited October 16, 2024 by mrschimpf

[Georgie56 3292]

Rebrand goes into effect Monday.

 

 

 

[Viper550 290]

For some reason, I'm betting this is not going to be the end for Bally's stupid graphics. I'm betting they're just gonna take all the Bally graphics and make them blue and flatter. Or only change the intros and make the B in the ticker the FanDuel emblem, and nothing else.