Amazon pulls Diamond/Bally offer to fund RSNs

$115 million investment taken away as broadcaster plans to exit bankruptcy

Anaheim Ducks dump Bally for new over-the-air/streaming venture

[Editor’s Note: This article was updated at 4:47 p.m.]

If you are in a Bally Sports market and hoping to stream your favorite games through Amazon, it won’t happen.  

The tech and e-commerce giant announced Monday it was pulling its $115 million investment in Bally Sports owner Diamond despite plans to pull out of bankruptcy, according to Sports Business Journal, who first reported the story.

This comes despite Diamond coming to terms with the NBA and NHL last week, with each league committing to the upcoming 2024-25 season. However, Bally agreed to drop two NBA teams – the Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans, leaving each to find new partners for next season with the Pelicans already signing a deal with broadcaster Gray Television earlier this month. Gray owns Fox affiliate WVUE in New Orleans. 

The NHL’s Anaheim Ducks became the latest team to bail on Bally Sports, announcing today it’s moving all of its games to a new streaming service called Victory Plus, the same streaming portal the Dallas Stars are using as they also defected from Bally. The Ducks also announced they were airing 65 games per season on Fox’s KCOP, the former Chris-Craft/United station once known as “UPN 13” and “My13” is now branded as “Fox 11 Plus”, a sister station to KTTV, branded as “Fox 11”. 

When the Ducks arrived in the NHL in 1993, several games were shown on KCAL as both shared common ownership through The Walt Disney Co. at the time and aired contests on former independent KDOC in recent years. Games will be streamed in the Ducks’ television territory, including the Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Honolulu television markets. 

Diamond recently struck a deal with Comcast after a months-long standoff, but now is regulated to the cable operator’s most expensive tier. Comcast was the last holdout after Diamond struck similar deals with other carriers.

Despite these developments, Amazon pulled their planned investment anyway, as it was nothing more than a non-binding agreement with certain conditions needing to be met. Since their announcement in January, Amazon made a sublicensing deal with Rogers to stream NHL games on Monday nights in Canada exclusively and struck an eleven-year deal with the NBA, paying $1.8 billion per year for rights. Given these recent deals, Amazon didn’t need to invest in a floundering group of regional sports networks. 

Also left in the lurch are fans of five MLB teams, which Bally still doesn’t have the streaming rights for its app. 

With new agreements, Bally has thirteen NBA and eight NHL teams in their stable. The NBA teams also agreed to a 30 to 40 percent revenue decrease from Bally, making it tougher for teams – especially in smaller markets – to compete with teams in larger markets such as the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers. Teams could also raise ticket prices to make up for the revenue shortfall in the future.

Despite Amazon’s disinvestment, Diamond feels it has enough investors in its company to submit a plan to the judge overseeing the bankruptcy case in Houston in the coming weeks. But these recent developments are disappointing for fans given Bally has a $20-a-month lackluster app, making it more expensive than an Amazon Prime Video subscription. And if you are a cable subscriber, you will also be paying more to see your favorite teams as like Comcast, other carriers have also moved the RSN to higher-priced tiers. Any way you look at this, it’s not good for consumers.