Comcast and Bally Sports are in a big disagreement that’s affecting the TV channels showing sports games. Comcast has decided to stop showing 15 regional sports networks from Bally Sports. This means that people who have Comcast won’t be able to watch games from 12 Major League Baseball teams in nine states.
The company that owns the Bally Sports networks, Diamond Sports Group, is not happy about this. They say Comcast is not willing to talk and find a solution. Comcast, on the other hand, says Diamond didn’t agree to some of their offers to solve the problem. They say Diamond could have just kept their existing agreement with Comcast for another year, but they chose not to. So, Comcast had no choice but to stop showing the sports channels.
Comcast says they will give their customers some money back for not being able to watch the sports games. They plan to give them monthly credits of $8 to $10.
Both companies are not saying much more than what’s in their prepared statements.
Making things more complicated is the fact that Diamond Sports Group is trying to recover from bankruptcy. They declared bankruptcy about a year ago because they owed a lot of money from a previous deal.
This situation is part of a bigger problem in the world of TV and sports. More and more people are canceling their cable TV subscriptions and switching to streaming services. This means cable companies like Comcast have less money to pay for expensive sports channels. To make up for this, Comcast wants to put sports channels in more expensive TV packages. But companies like Diamond Sports Group don’t like this idea. They say it will cause problems for them and for the sports teams.
Right now, the blackout only affects baseball games. But if it goes on for a long time, other sports could be affected too. Diamond Sports Group owns the TV rights for 38 sports teams from the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
The baseball teams affected by the blackout are the Atlanta Braves, Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Brewers, Texas Rangers, and Los Angeles Angels.
