{"id":281521,"date":"2024-04-18T08:59:08","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T13:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=281521"},"modified":"2024-04-18T09:00:11","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T14:00:11","slug":"broadcaster-diamond-begins-vote-on-bankruptcy-restructuring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=281521","title":{"rendered":"Diamond Begins Vote On Bankruptcy Restructuring"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New York (TheFan) \u2013 Regional sports broadcaster Diamond Sports Group received U.S. court approval on Wednesday to begin voting on its bankruptcy plan, allowing it to move ahead with a debt-slashing deal while negotiating longer-term agreements with cable companies and sports leagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diamond, a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, is pursuing a restructuring that would eliminate over $8 billion in debt and provide the company with additional funding from Amazon.com as part of a streaming deal signed in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diamond is also negotiating longer-term deals with cable companies, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association, Diamond attorney Brian Hermann said at a bankruptcy court hearing in Houston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diamond recently signed a new long-term contract with the cable company Charter Communications, and it hopes to build on that success by signing new deals with DirecTV and Comcast, Hermann said. Contracts with those three companies provide more than 80% of Diamond\u2019s revenue, according to court documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe hope to be in a position by the summer to confirm a plan that is underpinned by deals with at least the three big distributors as well as the two leagues that I mentioned,\u201d Hermann said in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diamond, which broadcasts about 40% of regular-season baseball, hockey and basketball games in the U.S. through its Bally Sports-branded television channels, has not reached a bankruptcy deal with Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has cut ties with two baseball teams during its bankruptcy, and it has reached short-term agreements that allow it to continue broadcasting games for 12 more teams at least through the end of the 2024 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MLB, which opposed Diamond\u2019s effort to stream more baseball games directly to fans online, said in an April 10 court filing that it has \u201cserious concerns\u201d about whether Diamond can become a sustainable business after its bankruptcy restructuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NHL and the NBA also expressed concerns last week, saying that the uncertain status of Diamond\u2019s negotiations with cable providers made it difficult for the leagues to plan ahead beyond 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both indicated more willingness to work with Diamond than the MLB in their recent court filings, with the NHL saying it was \u201chopeful\u201d and the NBA saying it had \u201cworked tirelessly\u201d in support of Diamond\u2019s restructuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Wednesday\u2019s hearing, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez approved Diamond\u2019s request to begin voting on its plan, setting a May 22 deadline for votes and scheduling a June 18 hearing to consider final approval of Diamond\u2019s restructuring plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diamond filed for bankruptcy in March 2023, caught between expensive broadcast rights agreements and a drop in revenue due to cord-cutting by sports viewers. The sports broadcaster had been headed toward a liquidation of its business before reaching a restructuring deal in January with its lenders, Sinclair and Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York (TheFan) \u2013 Regional sports broadcaster Diamond Sports Group received U.S. court approval on Wednesday to begin voting on its bankruptcy plan, allowing it to move ahead with a debt-slashing deal while negotiating longer-term agreements with cable companies and sports leagues. Diamond, a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":281522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=281521"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281525,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281521\/revisions\/281525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/281522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}