The Diamond Sports Group has reportedly agreed to a major deal that will help solidify the company’s operations going forward.
Per John Ourand of Puck News, Diamond and DirecTV have agreed to a multi-year carriage deal, keeping the Bally Sports RSNs on the country’s third-largest carrier.
BREAKING: Diamond Sports has a deal in principle with DirecTV. It's a multi-year deal for all the Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks.
Comcast is next up for Diamond. Its deal ends tomorrow.
Full details in @PuckNews' The Varsity tonight.
— John Ourand (@Ourand_Puck) April 29, 2024
This is Diamond’s second major carriage deal this month. Earlier in April, Diamond agreed to a multi-year renewal with Charter, the country’s largest cable, satellite, or streaming carrier.
As Ourand mentioned in his tweet, Diamond hasn’t reached its endgame quite yet. The company’s carriage deal with Comcast, the second-largest carrier in the United States, expires on Tuesday. If Diamond and Comcast reach a new deal, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Bally Sports RSNs find their way to a more expensive tier. This is a strategy Comcast has used with recent carriage deals, resulting in both MASN and Root Sports Northwest ending up on the Ultimate TV tier.
Despite its size, Comcast doesn’t serve all markets where Diamond operates Bally Sports RSNs. Comcast operates in several Bally markets, including Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis, the Twin Cities, and most of Florida. The carrier is a non-factor in Bally cities Dallas, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and much of Ohio.
However, it’s still essential for Diamond to get that Comcast deal done. The company wouldn’t be completely out of the woods after signing new deals with Charter, Comcast, and DirecTV since it still doesn’t have deals with Dish (which dropped NESN, its final RSN, in December 2021), YouTube TV (which dropped the then-Fox Sports RSNs in September 2020), and Hulu Live (which dropped them a month after YouTube TV in October 2020).
