MLB is planning to pay millions to the San Diego Padres and over a dozen other teams that won’t get important payments in the fallout from Bally Sports’ parent company filing for bankruptcy.
While sports fans are well aware of many of the major networks that air games each week like ESPN, FOX, CBS, and TNT, they are just a small piece of the overall tapestry of sports broadcasting. The majority of games that are aired throughout the year are broadcasted on regional networks. They are the heart of sports television for many fans.
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However, that was changed in a major way earlier this year when Diamond Sports filed for bankruptcy. Diamond Sports is the parent company of Bally Sports, a brand that is very familiar to many sports fans since it serves as the broadcast source for dozens of NHL, NBA, and MLB teams. With the network in financial ruin, there had been growing concern about where some teams — including the San Diego Padres — will have their games air throughout the season.
Earlier this week it was revealed that many teams will see their games switch to a new network or MLB’s streaming service in the near future, which solves one problem. However, another major issue is the payments franchises are owed for Bally Sports airing their content.
That income is a huge part of the money flow for most organizations, and with no guarantees that Ballys Sports will be able to pay up, the MLB has unfortunately had to dig into their own coffers to address the issue.
San Diego Padres record (2023): 25-30, fourth place in NL West
On Wednesday, The Athletic revealed — from bankruptcy court documents they obtained — that MLB is planning to pay 80% of the money for the rest of the season that is owed to the San Diego Padres and 13 other teams that have deals with Bally Sports that are expected to end in the coming days.
“We didn’t feel like we should be in the position of guaranteeing somebody else’s payments, but we wanted them to have enough cash flow to prevent a disruption of our business. Clubs had cash flow concerns. We took a look at the 14 clubs, what their contractual commitments to players were, what their cost structure looked like, the debt they had.
“… We said, ‘OK, everybody needs to relax here, we need to work our way through this,’ and in order to help the clubs, give them a little peace of mind, we said to ‘em, ‘Look, no matter what happens, we’ll backstop you at 80 percent of what you expect to get under your media deal.'”
– Rob Manfred in court documents
The rights to broadcast MLB regional content are worth billions, and payments for this season’s set of games are in the hundreds of millions. This means the league will be dealing out a huge sum of money to the San Diego Padres and other teams in this Bally Sports debacle.