By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man – @tvanswerman

Judge Christopher Lopez, the presiding judge in Diamond Sports’ bankruptcy case, today approved the RSN company’s request to reject its agreement to broadcast the Arizona Diamondbacks games on Bally Sports Arizona.

Associated Press reports that Major League Baseball will take over the broadcasts starting with tonight’s game against the Atlanta Braves.

MLB TV is already selling single team plans for the Diamondbacks for $54.99 for the rest of the season. Monthly plans are $19.99. The Diamondbacks single-team plans are only available in the team’s market and they do not include blackouts.

The league says the games will be free on MLB.com and Dbacks.com until Sunday, July 23.

The Diamondbacks will also be available on a new channel carried by pay TV operators. DIRECTV and DIRECTV Stream have already announced they will carry the new channel. The DIRECTV satellite Diamondbacks channel will be 686-3 while the Stream channel will be 686.

Update: Cox, Fubo, Mediacom, Comcast, Charter’s Spectrum TV, and Optimum/Suddenlink will also carry the new Diamondbacks channel.

Diamond Sports, which declared bankruptcy in March, first requested that the Diamondbacks pact be rejected in a motion filed last month. After Diamond Sports filed that request, it filed a new motion to postpone a hearing on the request to yesterday, July 17. Diamond Sports said it was in ‘positive’ discussions with the team to continue broadcasting Arizona’s games.

But negotiations to continue the deal failed with Diamond Sports yesterday filing a proposed order that would approve its initial request to end the Diamondbacks deal. Judge Lopez approved that proposed order today.

The Diamondbacks is the second MLB team that Diamond Sports has rejected since the March bankruptcy filing. The company ended its agreement with the San Diego Padres on May 30 and MLB took over the broadcasts the next day.

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— Phillip Swann
@tvanswerman