The number of teams moving from Diamond Sports’ regional sports networks Bally Sports to a combination of television broadcasts and streaming deals continues to grow.
The latest additions are the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks, who are leaving Bally Sports SoCal, but their new deal has some interesting aspects, particularly the fact that the games will be offered for free via streaming.
According to Eric Stephens of The Athletic, the Ducks’ local games will be broadcast on Los Angeles channel 13, KCOP (known as Fox 11 Plus). The commentary team of live commentator John Ahlers and analyst Brian Hayward are expected to return, as are contributors Kent French, Aly Lozoff and Guy Hebert.
These shows will also be streamed for free within the Ducks’ designated market area on A Parent Media Co. Inc.’s Victory+ service, and there will also be fringe programming there, as Ducks President Aaron Teats Stephens told:
“I think the community, and especially our fans, will appreciate that because we can provide them with our content in the way they want to consume it, and for free,” Teats told The Athletic.
Teats said this change achieves the team’s goal of distributing content throughout the Los Angeles regional market, a vast area that includes approximately 8 million households in numerous counties in Southern California and Hawaii.
…“We have to prioritize distribution,” Teats said. “We have to prioritize the number of fans that have access to our games. And I give Henry and Susan all the credit in the world for being able to prioritize distribution in the market for all Ducks and all NHL fans.
“We’ve found a great model for maximum distribution where 100 percent of households in our DMA can access our games for free. And that’s a huge step forward for our fan base, for our team and for our brand. We’re really excited about the first broadcast.”
As Joe Reedy of The Associated Press notes, the Ducks are the third NHL team to make such a move this offseason alone, following the Stanley Cup-winning Florida Panthers (who moved from Bally Sports Sun to Scripps Sports and its local affiliates, with a direct-to-consumer product to be announced) and the Dallas Stars (who left Bally Sports Southwest to move to Victory+, where their broadcasts are also streamed for free; they could also sign a broadcast deal).
Curiously, this came just a week after Bally reportedly signed deals with 13 NBA teams and nine NHL teams for this season, including the Ducks. The discrepancy may be because Teats Stephens said they continued to negotiate with Bally after their contract expired last season before ultimately deciding to go this route, so this agreement (which also included the NHL’s approval of the league) may have been a fallback plan in their particular case in case this deal didn’t go through.
Overall, it remains to be seen how far these RSNs have fallen. Sinclair (and partners) bought the then-21 RSNs from Disney in 2019 for $10.6 billion, which is much less than the $20-22 billion (including YES, which sold separately for $3.5 billion) they were originally estimated to be worth when Disney bought them from Fox as part of a larger deal that closed earlier this year. (Disney was forced to sell the RSNs as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice to get the larger deal approved.)
But a combination of factors soon reduced that value even further. These included Sinclair’s limited funds, its difficulties in launching an often-delayed and then panned over-the-top app, and the COVID-19 pandemic. All of this led Sinclair to seek offers for around $3 billion in 2022, but was unsuccessful and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2023.
The bankruptcy proceedings are ongoing, but it is clear that Sinclair’s ownership has passed to creditors (amid various other feuds and litigation), and the future of these RSNs overall is very uncertain (even after Amazon withdrew its offer to finance the company for $115 million this week).
For Bally Sports SoCal in particular, all that’s left now are the Los Angeles Clippers (who already have their own alternative streaming product) and the West Coast Conference, so their future is definitely uncertain as well. But for the company as a whole, the Ducks are just the latest team to leave, and they probably won’t be the last.
(The Athletic, Associated Press)
