There is much discussion about Diamond Sports Group’s (the parent company of Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks) attempts to emerge from bankruptcy and continue to offer local game broadcasts for many MLB, NBA, NHL and other teams (albeit with a much smaller roster than before their March 2023 bankruptcy). However, an interesting point amidst all of this is the pressure the company is facing, not from leagues or teams, but from individual users.
Complaints about glitches and bugs with Diamond’s Bally Sports app (which works either with an authenticated login from a multichannel video programming distributor or as a $20-a-month Bally Sports+ service) have been around for a few years, but they came to light in a particularly notable way on Tuesday night, when users from many different Diamond markets complained that they couldn’t get the app to work. Here are some of them:
Everything about @BallySports is second-rate. Production, customer service and the app are a disaster.
As I was trying to watch my team win the division, the app completely exploded.
The only thing that goes for them is their social media and content team. đź‘€
— Nathan Bloechl (@NathanBloechl) 17 September 2024
Hey @BallySports WE ARE NOT DOING THAT TONIGHT
— Liam Neeson 〽️ 🏆 (@Liam_Foster222) 17 September 2024
Death, taxes and the @BallySports The app is almost unusable. #royal
— #MVPat (@rbkcmo) 17 September 2024
From Bally Sports …
“We are experiencing an unusually high volume of messages right now. Please try again later.” Um… yes… We would like to see @Tiger Play. Please and thank you.— Carole L. | Choose Blue | Colburn-Mitzner (@techlady56) 18 September 2024
@ballysportshelp Look at your garbage app. Pathetic. I want my money back. pic.twitter.com/ofoDgCBwbw
— Gene Moore (@GeneInKC) 18 September 2024
@BallySports is your app not working? I closed it, restarted it and even uninstalled/installed the app. Still not working. Can’t see it @Brewer @ballysportshelp
— Mike Rubocki (@coasterfreak04) 17 September 2024
This sparked a significant response from the customer service account @BallySportsHelps on X/Twitter:
Bally Sports is currently experiencing a streaming outage in several regions. We know every moment counts. The Bally Sports operations team is working quickly to identify and resolve the issue. We will let you know once service is restored.
— BallySportsHelp (@ballysportshelp) 18 September 2024
That post then received more than 100 replies and many more tweets, many with further complaints. So this was definitely a notable outage that affected fans in multiple markets, and on a key September Tuesday with MLB action. And while the Bally app is far from the first streaming service to experience technical issues, it’s notable that the frequency of complaints seems to be dropping significantly with larger companies and networks.
In the meantime, there have been so many more shots at the Diamond/Bally RSNs. And these have come for many ongoing reasons, including login issues and stream quality, not just complete outages. And that has caused a lot of cheering from many fans as teams abandon these RSNs for alternatives.
The future of these RSNs is completely uncertain. It’s not entirely clear at this point whether or not their plans to emerge from bankruptcy by April 1, 2025 (a timeframe agreed to by the NBA and NHL but pushed back by MLB) will actually happen. But it certainly won’t make the teams and leagues that still work with them happy if they have to deal with a high number of more complaints from viewers who can’t access games due to technical issues. And that could increase the incentive for others to leave.
