Diamond Sports Group Enters into Debt Restructuring Agreement, Investment and Partnership with Amazon

Big news from Diamond Sports Group. The company has entered into a Restructuring Support Agreement (RSA) with its largest creditor groups, enabling Diamond to emerge from bankruptcy. As part of the terms, Amazon has also committed to making a minority investment (no details were given, and the media is reporting different numbers ranging from $100M to $125M) in Diamond and entering into a commercial arrangement to provide access to Diamond’s services via Prime Video. Under this arrangement, Prime Video will become Diamond’s primary partner through which customers can purchase DTC access to stream local Diamond channels.

Diamond owns the streaming rights to 5 of the 9 MLB teams it is still broadcasting, including the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals, the Miami Marlins, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Tampa Bay Rays. It is unclear if viewers in those markets would need to pay more than the Prime membership to access those games. Diamond said additional details regarding pricing and availability will be announced later.

Customers will be able to access all local DTC content, including live MLB, NBA, and NHL games, and pre-and post-game programming for the teams for which Diamond retains DTC rights through Prime Video Channels. However, there is no guarantee that MLB, NBA and the NHL will continue to work with Bally Sports past this year.

Diamond also announced that it has an agreement in principle with its parent, Sinclair, to settle the pending lawsuit between the companies and the other named defendants. Under the settlement, among other things, Sinclair will pay Diamond $495 million in cash and provide ongoing management and transition services to support Diamond’s reorganization and separation from Sinclair’s operations.

The court must approve any proposed deal since Diamond is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.