A Bally Sports display is seen during the eighth inning of the game between the Houston Astros and the Minnesota Twins of the MLB at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 9, 2023.
David Berding | Getty Images Sports | Getty Images
Bally Sports regional channels return to Comcast cable TV customers.
Diamond Sports, owner of the Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks, reached an agreement with Comcast on Monday that will see the networks go live for cable customers on Aug. 1.
The networks, which air regular-season games from local MLB, NBA and NHL teams in various markets, were taken offline for Comcast cable customers on May 1, at the start of MLB’s regular season. Fans of 11 MLB teams, including the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins, were affected.
The deal paves the way for Diamond Sports to survive after filing for bankruptcy in March of last year. The company has been busy securing contracts with several pay-TV providers, including Comcast.
“Entering into a new distribution agreement with Comcast, our third-largest distributor, is an important step forward in our restructuring. We are pleased that fans will once again have access to broadcasts of their local teams through Xfinity,” Diamond CEO David Preschlack said in a press release.
Diamond has also entered into transport agreements with Communication CharterDirecTV and Fubo.
“With certainty in our distribution, we are focused on finalizing an agreement with the NHL and resolving our ongoing negotiations with the NBA. We recognize that time is of the essence with basketball and hockey seasons quickly approaching, and once agreements with our team and league affiliates are complete, we intend to quickly present a reorganization plan to the court,” Preschlack said in the release.
The leagues have recently raised concerns about the future of Diamond Sports in court hearings, questioning whether the company could come up with a viable business plan for the upcoming NBA and NHL seasons this fall.
Diamond was scheduled to file a hearing Monday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas seeking court approval for its reorganization plan, but postponed the hearing in an attempt to reach an agreement with Comcast.
The company has indicated that it plans to file for bankruptcy protection and will remain the property of its creditors.
Negotiations between Diamond and Comcast broke down in May after a dispute over terms, namely how quickly the cable provider could move its sports networks to a tiered model. This means customers would have to opt into packages that included the channels at a higher rate, rather than having them included in broader cable packages.
The agreement reached Monday allows Comcast to offer Diamond Sports networks at such tiers outside of its broader cable offering, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the deal.
Pay-TV companies like Comcast have been losing customers in recent years as consumers opt for cheaper streaming options. Comcast said last week that it lost 419,000 domestic cable customers in the second quarter and now has about 13.2 million total subscribers.
Regional sports networks were once a lucrative business, but are now struggling as customers cancel their cable subscriptions.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.