A new update has been wrote in this article 10/21/24 regarding where the Reds are with things in paragraph 3 headed “10/21/24 Update.”
Money. The root of all evil, right? Well, in this case, yep, but do we really care? If you’re a Cincinnati Reds fan, it’s likely that you don’t. A lot of us can’t stand the Bally broadcasts. Let’s take a look at some of the issue we’re seeing currently and what some updates are with the whole shenanigans that you’ve heard about unless you’ve been living under a rock.
What is going on, man?
Diamond Sports Group (Bally Sports OH) has filed for bankruptcy and has been in court for a year now with Major League Baseball to begin to try to resolve some monetary issue. Amazon joined Diamond Sports Group as an investor last season basically rescuing them for a moment, but now the two sides are back in court — and it’s heated, once more.
Diamond Sports Group’s lawyers blindsided the MLB yesterday in court suggesting that they would breach the contract with several clubs: The Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers. This means they’ll continue on as a business venture, but without those teams. They only agreed to their Atlanta Braves contract for 2025. There’s some issue there for Diamond, however, and it pertains to the Cincinnati Reds.
The Cincinnati Reds are in a joint venture with Diamond Sports Group considering they own a % of Bally Sports OH – a piece of structure that transferred over from when DSG acquired the Fox Sports RSNs. That’s right, a big piece of holdup here in court is rooted right here in Cincinnati, OH. Diamond Sports Group representatives has said that they have submitted a proposal to several clubs in the above list, it’s unclear if the Reds have been one or not, but we’ll carry on this article with the idea that it hasn’t occurred.
10/21/24 Update on RSNs
Ladies & gentleman, we’ve got you an update: FanDuel has taken over the naming rights to Bally Sports Ohio. The Network is now doing business as “FanDuel Sports Network Cincinnati.” As far as contract goes, there’s no new update, but one could assume this is going to get figured out after all, considering the agreement to name change. Remember, the Reds are in a joint venture agreement with Bally Sports OH, so they now own 5% or more of FanDuel Sports Network Cincinnati. The latest was that the DSG/FanDuel team proposed a new contract. There’s no update on where that’s at. For now, the only thing we know is that Bally Sports is now titled FanDuel Sports Network and the reps at FanDuel are very motivated to capture the MLB market. FanDuel is worth $39B as it stands.
What will change for me, the consumer?
To be clear – this is all fresh, still, and nothing is concrete just yet. We only know that DSG wants to renegotiate with the Reds. That means that they’re saying they won’t carry their games, even though they’re technically under contract for 2025, without the Reds going back to the drawing board with them to discuss money. In 2023, for example, even with the extremely good ratings the Reds had in the 2nd half, Diamond Sports Group reported a $10M LOSS – easy to see why they want to renegotiate with the club, right? They’re losing money on our team. Ratings / earnings have yet to come out for 2024, but you can suggest that they’ve lost money this year, too.
Elly de La Cruz Electricidad Vintage Style T-shirt
Elly De La Cruz vintage style t-shirt – Perfect for Bristol Speedway in 2025!
What Bally did in previous was take their channel off of cable providers. Some of you folks know this all too well – and some of you can’t even watch Reds games, ahem, YouTube TV. I believe that this is what will end up happening in 2025 again if they can’t come to agreements with the clubs.
If the contract is dropped…
If Bally ends up not able to come to an agreement with the Reds (and other clubs,) what will happen is that MLB will take over the production. Manfred has already stated that they were ready to last year if it got uglier, and for some teams, this actually did happen. The Diamondbacks & Padres are two teams that had their broadcast picked up by MLB, and I’ll tell ya, they weren’t half bad. I actually enjoyed them.
The one thing that’ll genuinely suck out loud is that a lot of our favorite personalities will be no longer. Barry Larkin likely won’t be back. John Sadak likely won’t be back. Annie Sabo won’t be there. Jim Day will be a thing of the past. Alright, I’m being a little dramatic, but seriously, it’s unlikely the Reds will be able to retain all of their personalities if the contract is dropped.
The Reds will have options when it comes to business going forward:
- Propose their broadcast rights to a new carrier (WGN, etc.)
- Take over the broadcast themselves via independent contractors (Bally Sports OH broadcast is already a group of independent contractors, for the most part, including producer) and then offer a monthly subscription service to fans
- Let MLB handle it while negotiations continue forward
If you left the decision up to me, I’d propose it to another carrier. That guaranteed revenue is a necessity, especially in this market, to keep the lights on. Regardless, the Cincinnati Reds are in trouble. They’ll get the rights part figured out, but they had a VERY generous contract with Fox Sports OH that got picked up by DSG gifting $48-60M per season with no questions asked. That is a dramatic hit to yearly revenue. It’s safe to say the Reds will sit with a puckered b-hole and a tail tucked between the cheeks in 2025’s offseason. They won’t be spending money on anything. Who’s ready for another Will Benson 650 PA season in RF/LF? Yay…
