MILWAUKEE — The company that helps broadcast Milwaukee Bucks and Milwaukee Brewers games may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. So far, it seems a bankruptcy won't impact the games you are watching.
Bloomberg first reported the news on Thursday. The television company, Sinclair Broadcasting, oversees a number of regional sports networks, or RSNs, it owns, under the name Bally Sports. Diamond Sports Group, a subsidiary that manages those brands for Sinclair, is expected to avoid paying a $140 million interest payment due in the middle of February. If the company files for bankruptcy because it can't pay its dues, the broadcasting rights payments owed to sports teams face uncertainty. We don't know if the rights fees will be withheld after a declaration of bankruptcy or if Diamond will end contracts signed with sports teams, as Bloomberg reports.
The issue Diamond is facing is that it can't keep up with the cost of buying rights and producing live sports content, compared to the income it makes from customers buying their sports app or via carriage agreements, according to Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's JR Radcliffe.
Bally Sports Wisconsin and Sinclair pay millions of dollars to the Milwaukee Brewers and the Milwaukee Bucks each year to broadcast the games.
According to Bloomberg, Diamond going bankrupt will not disrupt Brewers and Bucks broadcasts on cable and satellite, at least in the near future.
According to the SportsBusinessJournal, the Brewers' contract with Bally is worth about $34 million per year over four years. The Bucks in the middle of 2018 agreed to extend their contract by seven years with Fox Sports Wisconsin, which is now called Bally Sports Wisconsin.
Sinclair bought the regional sports networks from the Walt Disney Company in 2019. Diamond expects to emerge from any restructuring by May or June, according to Bloomberg.
