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More change is coming to Diamond Sports’ regional sports networks.
The company said in court papers filed Tuesday that it reached a naming rights deal with Flutter-owned FanDuel, which will rebrand the Bally Sports channels just as the National Hockey League season has started and the National Basketball Association’s 2024-2025 season is less than a week away.
Diamond Sports said in the filing that if it is able to emerge from bankruptcy protection, FanDuel will be a “long-term naming rights partner.” The new naming rights agreement would also give FanDuel the right to buy up to 5% of equity in the reorganized company and get performance warrants for up to 5% of equity.
The agreement was approved by a bankruptcy judge Friday afternoon despite an attorney for MLB raising some concerns with what he said was a lack of information about the structure of the term sheet.
The MLB wanted more information on the deal structure because of the association of its content with sports betting, MLB’s attorney James Bromley said at the hearing.
Joseph Graham, an attorney representing Diamond Sports, said the agreement still forces both parties to follow all the existing league rules on gambling.
The judge ended the hearing by urging the legal representation for Diamond Sports to show MLB and any other interested parties a redacted term sheet to alleviate their concerns.
“A large cohort of FanDuel customers are devoted RSN viewers and this agreement allows us to further cement the FanDuel brand with sports fans and provides a unique vehicle to reward our users,” Mike Raffensperger, FanDuel Group’s president of sports, said in a company release shortly after the hearing concluded.
The launch under the FanDuel Sports Network brand will officially happen Monday across all of Diamond’s 16 regional sports networks. There will be different names depending on the region.
Friday’s court hearing was also the first time that Diamond Sports or the MLB said the Miami Marlins and Diamond were close to an agreement.
A spokesperson for the Miami Marlins declined to comment or confirm.
Earlier this month, Diamond Sports said it was planning to drop all of its MLB teams except for the Atlanta Braves for the 2025 season. The existing teams’ contracts are in various stages with Diamond Sports, but in total, the company would see 11 MLB teams exit.
A Diamond Sports attorney said in court earlier this month that dropping these teams “is not our preferred path.”
Three of those 11 teams will have their games produced by MLB next season, according to a league release.
The new partnership will allow Diamond Sports to get one step closer to emerging from bankruptcy and will give FanDuel, which is already the top sports betting company by market share, even more exposure.
In Tuesday’s court papers, Diamond said that while discussions with FanDuel began in February, it waited until it finalized agreements with the NBA and NHL to negotiate the final terms of the naming rights deal. A FanDuel representative declined to comment beyond the filings, and the specific financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Diamond Sports said in court papers it considered FanDuel “an attractive potential partner … due to the high degree of alignment” between the regional sports networks and the online gaming business.
What’s in a name?
This will be the regional sports networks’ third name. As part of its acquisition of Fox Corp.’s assets, Disney had to divest the networks in order to gain regulatory approval. Disney offloaded the networks, still under the Fox Sports banner, in 2019 to Sinclair. A naming rights deal was later signed with gaming company Bally’s Corp.
The Bally’s Corp. agreement ended as part of the settlement that came earlier this year between Diamond Sports and Sinclair.
Diamond, which remains an independently run, unconsolidated subsidiary of Sinclair, alleged in the lawsuit that Sinclair’s ownership exacerbated its problems. Sinclair did not admit wrongdoing.
Diamond Sports filed for bankruptcy protection last year. Since then, Diamond’s restructuring has been filled with back-and-forth discussions with the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball as the debt-saddled company has attempted to emerge from bankruptcy.
Diamond Sports has said in court papers that based on financial projections, it hopes to emerge from bankruptcy as early as December.
Throughout the bankruptcy proceedings, teams across all three leagues have been exiting the networks and flocking to different local viewing options for their fans.
Several MLB teams, including the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, left the regional sports networks in 2023, and the MLB has produced the teams’ local games since then.
Some NBA teams that have left the regional sports networks have turned to local broadcast stations to air local games. The NHL’s Dallas Stars and Anaheim Ducks have launched over-the-top streaming partnerships with Victory+, a sports streamer owned by Canada-based A Parent Media Co., for their local viewing.
