Bally Sports is Bankrupt as Xfinity is informing me on the screen
Wow!
No Heat, Marlins, Rays, Lightning, WPT, lot of stuff I catch on Bally which used ot be Fox Sports I think.
Not sure what Xfinity/Comcast said, but the issue is that Comcast’s deal with Bally Sports is up and Comcast wants to move them to a higher tier and they haven’t been able to reach a compensation agreement. So it’s not that Bally is bankrupt (though they are going through bankruptcy), it’s that this is the typical hardball that gets played between providers and networks during contract negotiations.
This affects my market for both our local baseball and basketball teams. People who use one of the companies that has a deal with Bally hardly noticed over the past couple years because Bally was always included in their normal tiers. Those using different providers or streamers (I use Hulu live for most sports) had to subscribe directly to Bally ($20/mo) to see most games. As you note, Comcast now wants to move Bally to a higher pay tier and ended up dropping it entirely as part of the negotiations. Bally has reached agreements in recent months (unbelievably imo) with Charter, Cox, DTV and others, but is not included with Hulu live sports and is now no longer on Comcast.
Also agree this is not directly related to the pending bankruptcy, but that process could have major implications for Bally markets. The entity in bankruptcy (Diamond Sports Group, which manages Bally) at one point seemed almost certain to be liquidating, but they somehow came up with a restructuring plan that I think is being considered for confirmation this summer.
