There have been minor developments within the long-running Diamond Sports activities Group chapter proceedings this week. Most notable is the revelation of a deal that the broadcasting conglomerate struck with the Padres final summer season.
As Daniel Kaplan of Terrible Asserting first reported, Diamond agreed in July to a deal that would pay the San Diego group as a lot as $78.9MM to resolve breach of contract claims which the Padres made after Diamond dropped the workforce’s TV deal final spring. The Padres initially sought a $162MM award as compensation for the lapsed tv contract earlier than agreeing to the lesser sum in mediation.
That cash has not but been paid. The settlement requires an preliminary cost of roughly $10.5MM, adopted by a second payout price a most of $68.3MM that’ll be decided by calculating the remaining property of that contract’s worth after the Diamond/Padres RSN community is formally liquidated. Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes that Diamond will owe the approximate $10.5MM cost by the center of Might. The timeline for the second, a lot bigger sum remains to be not clear.
As a part of the settlement, the Padres and Diamond agreed to drop all litigation in opposition to each other. The Friars have proceeded with out an RSN deal since Diamond deserted the contract. MLB has dealt with in-market broadcasting in San Diego by way of MLB.television. The league coated 80% of what the Padres would’ve acquired — Sanders writes that the deal was valued round $60MM yearly — for the 2023 season. Commissioner Rob Manfred has mentioned that the league wouldn’t cowl misplaced rights charges for this yr and past.
The Padres are certainly one of two groups which Diamond had coated however deserted midseason. The corporate did the identical with the Diamondbacks a number of weeks after dropping the San Diego deal. It’s not identified if Diamond has agreed to any type of settlement with the Arizona franchise.
Diamond continues to carry native broadcasting rights for 12 groups: the Angels, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Guardians, Marlins, Rangers, Rays, Reds, Royals, Tigers and Twins. Whereas it initially appeared as if Diamond would disband after the 2024 season, an inflow of money as a part of a streaming partnership with Amazon has given the corporate confidence about its viability past this yr. That’s not fully shared by MLB, which continues to precise skepticism about Diamond’s long-term prospects. The Atheltic’s Evan Drellich writes that the chapter courtroom has scheduled a listening to for June 18 on the corporate’s particular plans for its $450MM in financing from the Amazon deal.