Tigers reach local TV deal with FanDuel Sports

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday morning in Federal Bankruptcy Court to decide whether Diamond Sports Group’s plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy will be approved. On the eve of that hearing, the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays have reached agreement with Diamond on a broadcast deal, with exact terms yet unknown.

MLB withdrew it’s objection to Diamond’s plan, leaving the US Trustee as the only remaining objection to overcome at the court hearing, which could take two days.

UPDATE: The Bankruptcy Court has approved Diamond’s reorganization plan

What is known is that there are now six teams going back to Diamond, which is now under the FanDuel sports label that was formerly branded as Bally Sports. The six are the Tigers, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Angels, St Louis Cardinals, Miami Marlins, and Atlanta Braves. Negotiations are ongoing with the Kansas City Royals. Diamond previously announced that they were dropping eleven of their twelve baseball teams, retaining only the Braves. It is also known that the Braves will have an “amended” deal, which had not previously been announced.

It seems likely that the deals will include local streaming rights, which is something that the Tigers’ deal previously included. That allows FanDuel to offer a stand alone package in the local market, either through their own platform or on Amazon Prime, for an extra fee to Prime subscribers. MLB.tv has the national rights to carry “out of market” games, and commissioner Rob Manfred is hot to get a national streaming deal in place, ideally by the time that MLB’s national TV contracts expire after the 2028 baseball season.

What is not known are the monetary terms of the contracts, or the length of the deal. The Cardinals’ contract runs through 2028, and they were reported to take a pay cut of 25 percent from their previous contract. Given the fact that Diamond went into bankruptcy in an effort to cut their debt ratio, one might surmise that the Tigers and others re-signing with Diamond will not receive as much under their amended contracts.

Angels’ owner Arte Moreno said that the new deal would allow the Angels to increase payroll. The Angels’ deal is for three seasons. The club also holds an ownership interest in their local FanDuel network.

The amount of the Tigers’ previous deal was not disclosed, but the contract that ended in 2021 paid the club $50 million per season. The annual payouts for teams signing into the current decade had continued to skyrocket, but that trend halted as cord cutters and a drop in consumers purchasing broadcast packages dropped. The Tigers latest deal was reported to run for the 2025 season, for the same annual amount. The deal did include local digital streaming rights.

Three of the five teams that left Diamond Group signed on with MLB’s own plan to broadcast their games in their local markets. The Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins, and Milwaukee Brewers joined the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres who joined MLB’s group a year ago. The MLB packages apparently feature no local blackouts for their teams.

The Texas Rangers are going to launch their own network. That’s an idea that has been speculated for Detroit as well since their owners also have a National Hockey League franchise. The Cincinnati Reds left Diamond and are looking for a new carrier.

Diamond Sports also owns the local broadcast rights to 13 teams in the National Basketball Association and eight teams in the National Hockey League, including the Detroit Red Wings.

Tony Paul has the story in the Detroit News, and Evan Drellich of the Athletic also has the scoop.