Diamond agreed to pay most of its MLB teams a full rights fee this season, as part of a deal the two sides worked out -- but still haven’t signed -- last week, sources said.
Three teams are not part of that agreement -- the Twins, Guardians and Rangers. The Rangers and Guardians have long-term deals with Diamond. The Twins’ deal expired at the end of last season.
By the end of this week, Diamond committed to put in offers for those teams -- presumably at lower rights fees than they have been paying.
If those teams do not accept the new deals from Diamond, their local rights will revert to MLB -- just like the local rights for the Padres and Diamondbacks did last season.
An interesting part of the deal, per sources, is that MLB is pushing to add a provision that if Diamond Sports defaults on any of these rights deals this season, MLB will gain control of Diamond’s stake in YES Network. Diamond, which owns 20% of YES Network, is unlikely to agree to such a provision.
Further complicating matters is a Wall Street Journal report that Amazon has been negotiating for an investment in Diamond that would include “a multiyear streaming partnership.” As part of the Diamond deal being discussed, Diamond would continue running its RSNs.
“Diamond has received support from a select group of creditors for proceeding with the talks. Any transaction is subject to bankruptcy-court approval and could still fall through,” per the WSJ’s Lauren Thomas and Joe Flint.
