Why Does Major League Baseball Hate Bally Sports?

News Analysis
By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man –Follow me on X.

TV Answer Man, why does it seem like Major League Baseball and the commissioner are always criticizing Diamond Sports and Bally Sports? Don’t they want them to stay in business so they will pay for the rights to air their games? I don’t get it. – Marcus, Fort Worth, Texas. 

Marcus, you’re right. For the last 18 months, there has been no more frequent and vocal critic of Diamond Sports than MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. Just this week, the league filed a blistering attack on the owner of the Bally Sports regional sports networks in a hearing in the bankruptcy court presiding over Diamond Sports’ bankruptcy case. (Diamond Sports filed bankruptcy in March 2023 but plans to submit a final reorganization plan in the coming months.) Noting that Diamond Sports just lost its carriage agreement with Comcast, an MLB attorney said the blackout of the Bally Sports RSNs in the cable op’s markets is a “potentially insurmountable obstacle.”

While it’s true that the NHL and NBA have also occasionally voiced concerns about Diamond Sports’ likelihood of summoning sufficient resources to continue broadcasting their games, it’s Manfred’s league which has argued from the bankruptcy’s beginning that the RSN company is unreliable and untrustworthy.

The animus between Manfred and Diamond Sports goes back even before Diamond Sports was established in March 2023. Manfred clashed repeatedly with Sinclair Broadcasting, the previous operator of the RSNs, over everything from streaming rights to communication protocols. (Sinclair created Diamond Sports to run the Bally Sports nets in March 2023 when the bankruptcy was filed.)

But the biggest motivation now behind MLB’s opposition to basically everything Diamond Sports does is Manfred’s desire to create his own streaming network for the league. If Diamond Sports would dissolve rather than emerge from bankruptcy, the league could take the 11 Bally Sports teams and make them part of the MLB TV service. The teams’ games could be sold directly to consumers in market without blackouts, just as the league is n0w doing with the Diamondbacks, Padres and Rockies, three teams that Diamond Sports severed agreements with last year.

With Manfred’s eye on that prize, it’s highly unlikely that the league will let up on its withering attacks on Diamond Sports until it’s done and buried. It’s possible that the NHL and NBA will continue to try to work with Diamond Sports, particularly with Amazon coming in as an investor, but not MLB. As soon as it’s legally permissible, Manfred and the league will move on.

Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.

The TV Answer Man is veteran journalist Phillip Swann who has covered the TV technology scene for more than three decades. He will report on the latest news and answer your questions regarding new devices and services that are changing the way you watch television. See the bio for Phillip Swann here.