Amazon and Diamond Sports — operator of the Bally Sports RSNs — are reportedly in talks that would eventually result in games being distributed through Amazon’s Prime Video platform.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Amazon and Diamond are in active negotiations on a “multiyear streaming partnership” that would see Amazon purchase an as-yet-undetermined stake in the now-bankrupt company and “eventually become the streaming home” of its properties.
Diamond currently streams its games through its own direct-to-subscriber, Bally Sports-branded service.
Amazon, which already owns a stake in YES Network, has previously been mentioned as a suitor for the NBA’s local rights in the league’s upcoming media rights negotiations. The NBA recently struck a deal with Diamond that will result in all of its existing deals with Bally Sports RSNs ending after this season. That arrangement was viewed as paving the way, at least partially, for the NBA to package local rights in a potential national deal with Amazon.
The aforementioned agreement between Diamond and the NBA is part of a plan by the company to exit all of its existing deals by the end of the 2024 Major League Baseball season. While that effort has been perceived — specifically by Diamond’s parent company Sinclair Broadcast Group — as a prelude to Diamond’s liquidation, an arrangement with Amazon would obviously change the calculus.
Nothing in Diamond’s plan would prevent it from reaching new deals with its now-current partners, and having Amazon as an investor and distributor would presumably make those deals more appealing.
(News from WSJ 12.18)
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