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Yesterday, about a half an hour before my Uncle’s memorial a good friend sent a note knowing it had been a rough couple weeks. I was helping with the service and this was a tough one. This friend has followed the blog since I started and added one link he knew I’d like to see. Dallas leaving Bally sports. I’d been waiting for a different headline, this one signaled the finale.

For all of you who have hung in, this is the 3rd team to leave. Arizona was kicked off last year (now Utah, not sure of status) and Chicago realigned with a local provider. Minnesota fans engaged local, state and Federal politicians after Comcast customers missed the first 50 or so MLB games. It was the provider kicking Bally off that signaled the end.

I reached out to someone who works “in proximity” with the Red Wings a few weeks ago and no official plan has been made yet. Then the release came that MLB is rushing their option as Bally may not make the summer.

For you readers, none of this is a shock. The court documents last year that I linked had Bally’s saying they would shut down after the MLB season in 2024. The “Hail Mary” attempt to bring in Amazon wasn’t enough for the business to regain stability and “Bally’s” officially folded months ago. Amazon/Diamond took the branding and invested into the streaming while an overplayed hand got them taken off of Comcast. Expect to hear something very soon about “plan B” as the rest of the markets are finally looking at what to do.

The following is a review of how we got here. If you remember it or don’t want to go through it again, stop reading here. Until Detroit or the league make an announcement there isn’t much more to add.

Bally’s comes into existence after Disney buy’s 20th century fox and sells of almost 2 dozen Fox Sports markets to Sinclair/Diamond for 8 billion dollars

After a short time, last year Bally’s finally declared bakruptcy for essentially the purchase price. It seems they were never able to make it back

Teams in the NBA and NHL were given the option to leave and told they could be forced off. Arizona was kicked off, Chicago left

Bally’s then told all markets they would receive 20% less revenue as opposed to the agreed upon net 220m

Reports of NBA broadcasts for the Pelicans and others not transmitting started to pop up last season.

Diamond Sports partnered with Amazon and upgraded the streaming side shortly before closing the Bally branch and keeping the name.

Comcast dropped the service before MLB season so only DirecTV and Charter customers had non streaming access.

Early struggles in the MLB season compounded with the Comcast decision pushed another market (a significant overall market) to make a move.

That is a massively “trimmed” version but captures most of what has brought us to this point. In speaking for my area, DirecTV forced anyone with tier 2 service (streaming or dish) to pay 7.99 per month for Bally. That was what the provider demanded of Charter and Comcast as well to guarantee more revenue. Comcast said no. I went to cancel the service for the summer and there is now (at least in this case) a $400 penalty to do so when I was told there was no contract at initial signup. This goes to one final piece.

The NFL lost an anti trust suit that alleges price fixing for Sunday Ticket on DirecTV. I was a sales executive for both AT&T a while ago and Sunday Ticket paid a lot of bills. It now belongs to Youtube with Red Zone (formerly at Comcast) going to DirecTV. Every restaurant that showed multiple NFL games on Sunday (buffalo wild wings was a big customer) in its entirety likely had Sunday ticket. Residentially, the NFL has to pay 4.7B and 96 million in commercial damages. The case is in appeal, but the money gone from the provider is significant. The NFL can sign that check fairly easily if ultimately needed.

Once Detroit or the NHL make any official statement, I’ll repost. For now, there’s not much point moving forward as Dallas has signaled to the rest of the league that this issue is much bigger than was still believed. Mark Cuban sold his Dallas sports interest months ago at nearly 1.5b less than he could have gotten citing “changes that were coming to the sports landscape”. You know about Minnesota’s scenario. Soon after the Boston Celtics won the championship rumors of the team being quietly shopped hit. More markets seem to be examining their interests that surprised me a bit.

Because of your support I’ve been able to follow this story for more than a year and some of you have reached out in encouragement, and some are sick to death of it. I am at this point tired, and hope the league makes a quick and sweeping decision so no one has to miss the greatest game in the world this coming fall.

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