Diamond Sports Group

Diamond Sports Group was the largest operator of regional sports networks (RSNs) in the United States, controlling 19 cable channels under the Bally Sports brand and carrying live MLB, NBA and NHL games to local audiences across the country. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2023, unable to service the $8.6bn in debt it had taken on when Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired the RSN portfolio from Fox Sports in 2019. Cord-cutting had hollowed out the subscriber base faster than any model had anticipated, while rights-fee obligations to leagues ran to $1.9bn in 2023 alone. A federal judge formally approved the reorganisation plan in November 2024, twenty months after the initial filing. By then, several teams had already Left the platform for direct-to-consumer or league-operated alternatives.

The bankruptcy played out as a slow unravelling rather than a single collapse. The San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks broke away after missed rights payments in 2023; Major League Baseball took over their broadcasts directly. By the end of the 2024 season the Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers had followed. Amazon briefly took a minority stake in early 2024 alongside a plan to host a direct-to-consumer tier on Prime Video. That deal did not stabilise the underlying economics. The Bally Sports brand has since been retired.

The gap Diamond Sports Left is structurally significant for the US streaming market. ViewLift, which ran the technical plumbing for RSN and team-owned streaming services, became an acquisition target precisely because Diamond's collapse Left regional sport without a credible distribution layer. DAZN agreed to acquire ViewLift for roughly $100m in May 2026, buying the infrastructure Diamond once anchored as a gateway to US regional sport.