Major League Baseball filed an emergency motion in Diamond Sports’ bankruptcy, asking the court to compel the regional sports broadcaster to pay overdue rights payments to the Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Guardians. Here’s what you need to know:
- Diamond’s Bally Sports Networks, filed March 15 for Chapter 11, is televising 14 MLB teams and three went unpaid, including the Arizona Diamondbacks.
- MLB is seeking an April 13 order that would force Diamond to either pay the Twins and Guardians or terminate contracts so the teams could take over the broadcasts.
- Bally Sports North and Bally Sports Great Lakes continued to televise the Twins and Guardians respectively, although they did not pay them.
What the application said
“Just one day before the April 1 due date for the first installment of the 2023 fees due to the clubs, the debtor RSNs informed the Guardians and the Twins that the debtor RSNs would not make the required payments,” the lawyers of wrote MLB its application (the debtor’s RSNs relate to Bally Sports). “The debtor RSNs have made this decision despite continuing to use the clubs valuable intellectual property on a daily basis. By continuing to broadcast Guardians and Twins games they generate post-petition revenue but audaciously refuse to pay the clubs.”
Diamond also didn’t pay the Diamondbacks, but that was just before the bankruptcy began, so the team is instead listed as a creditor on the Chapter 11 petition.
Several teams said in the filing that they reserve the right to join the filing if Diamond continues to fail to pay them. These teams are the Diamondbacks, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Tampa Rays and Texas Rangers.
In the application, MLB’s lawyer wrote that the clubs are willing to take over the transmissions if necessary.
“With the 2023 season underway, clubs are navigating a complicated and fragile situation with no assurance of their ability to consistently provide games to the millions of fans who follow professional baseball through daily television broadcasts,” the MLB attorneys wrote.
MLB’s application was redacted and did not publicly announce how much money the teams are owed. But a source close to Diamond said the Guardians’ annual fee is $55 million and the Twins’ $42 million.