One of the biggest legal developments in sports media over the last year or so has been the bankruptcy proceedings involving Diamond Sports Group (Diamond), the parent company of Bally Sports. In March of 2023, Diamond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after it took on significant debt after its purchase of various sports networks from Sinclair in 2019. Other factors including the loss of revenues from the COVID-19 pandemic, exponential uptick of “cord-cutters,” and rising interest rates have only exacerbated the company’s financial challenges in recent years.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy, also known as a reorganization bankruptcy, is a court-supervised process that allows a company to restructure its finances and operations while remaining in business. As part of Diamond’s reorganization, the company has parted ways with several teams it previously maintained under its broadcasting portfolio.

Entering the 2023 season, Bally Sports carried the broadcasts for 14 of the 30 MLB clubs in addition to many NBA and NHL franchises. During that season, Diamond lost a bankruptcy court case against MLB in which it argued that the rights fees it owed clubs should’ve been reduced due to changes in market dynamics in the era of cord-cutting and the decline of cable television. It had already missed payments to certain teams earlier that season, so the company was quickly put in a position to decide whether to keep or cut their existing contracts. The first two teams Diamond cut in 2023 were the San Diego Padres and the Arizona Diamondbacks. As we’ve come to learn however, those two were just the first of many that will no longer have their games on Bally Sports moving forward.

Last week, Diamond essentially announced that it plans to drop 11 of the 12 remaining MLB contracts in its portfolio barring renegotiation of the deals on more favorable terms.

Diamond’s lawyer said during a federal bankruptcy hearing that the company plans to assume “a single telecast rights agreement, that of the Atlanta Braves. All of the other teams, all of Major League Baseball’s other agreements, will be rejected under the plan.”

However, this does not necessarily mean that Diamond will only carry one team (The Braves) for the 2025 season. Diamond’s message to the league is that it wants to renegotiate with a collection of clubs. What the new terms and rights fees may look like is certainly up in the air and a lot will need to be determined before Opening Day next March.

With that being said, we do know who will broadcast games for three of Diamond's former teams in 2025. In the past few days, MLB announced it will produce and distribute local games for the Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins for next season. Those three will join the Colorado Rockies, and the aforementioned Diamondbacks and Padres as teams under MLB's umbrella. The Rockies were previously affiliated with Warner Bros. Discovery, who shut down or sold their regional sports networks at the end of 2023.

The Texas Rangers will also break away from Diamond as they are considering other local media options for the 2025 season. In the Dallas-Fort Worth market, the Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks have also ended their relationship with Diamond and subsequently formed their own broadcasts ahead of the 2024-2025 season.

The Guardians, Twins, Brewers and Rangers were all on expiring deals with Diamond. Seven other teams – the Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals -- are still in limbo as we sit here today. As the offseason unfolds, it will be interesting to see how each of these teams handles their uncertain broadcast situations.

More broadly, the decline of RSNs like Bally Sports comes with both benefits and drawbacks for MLB and its respective clubs. On the positive side, Rob Manfred is moving closer to accomplishing one of his biggest priorites: expanding the reach and access of the sport to fans across the world.

MLB, which launched a local-media division when Diamond first went into bankruptcy, will attempt to negotiate cable and satellite distribution agreements and make local streaming available through MLB.tv. Joining MLB and thus not being tied to the territorial rights associated with distributors will eliminate blackouts. MLB projects that games for the Guardians and Twins -- teams that, unlike the Brewers, did not have a local direct-to-consumer streaming option -- will see increases of 235% and 307%, respectively, in reach.

The data resulting from MLB’s acquisition of the Padres and Diamondbacks rights has already been fruitful on that front. MLB has reported that since taking over San Diego’s broadcasts, an additional 2 million people have access to Padres games. An according to an MLB press release, the availability of D-Backs games jumped from 930,000 households to 5.6 million households in the team’s home broadcast territory. Seeing more of this across the league is a great development.

While this expanded reach is a big positive for the league and its teams, there is a trade off. The rights fee regional sports networks have paid to their respective teams over the years is a major source of revenue that if lost, could have a significant effect on the bottom lines for MLB franchises. Yes, MLB does have a lucrative national TV deal and small market clubs do benefit from revenue sharing, but the decline of RSNs must at least pose some cause for concern moving forward. Last offseason, we saw certain clubs shy away from spending big in free agency amid the TV uncertainty. As we move into the offseason this winter, it will be interesting to see if this latest development with Bally Sports has a major impact.

This will certainly not be the last story pertaining to MLB or local broadcasts in the other major professional sports. With the exception of big market clubs like the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, and Giants, who either own or receive massive payments from their respective regional sports networks, the overall decline of RSNs is something every club is monitoring. Ideally, MLB would love to take control of all its teams' broadcast rights and offer in-market streaming to all fans. But that’s a lot easier said than done and there are certaintly still barriers standing in the way of Manfred and the league office. However, as Diamond Sports continues to reorganize amid its state of bankruptcy, some of those barriers appear to be falling.

Brendan Bell is a 2L at SMU Dedman School of Law and is the Southwest Regional Rep on Conduct Detrimental's Law School Student Board. He can be followed on Twitter (X) @_bbell5