Bankrupt RSN distributor Diamond Sports Group continues to lock down pay TV distribution deals with companies not name Comcast, announcing on Wednesday a multi-year carriage renewal agreement for its Bally Sports channels with virtual MVPD Fubo.
Terms of the deal weren't announced.
Fubo ended Q1 with just over 1.5 million subscribers in the U.S. And the nationally distributed vMVPD does offer some recourse for Comcast-subscribing fans of Bally Sports channels to see their favorite Major League Baseball club on TV this summer.
Also Read: Everything You Need To Know About the Bally Sports Bankruptcy
The agreement comes just over four weeks after all 18 remaining Bally Sports regional sports network channels went dark on Comcast, with Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary Diamond unwilling to cede to Comcast's demand that the Bally Sports channels be relegated to pricier digital cable channels.
While announcing the Fubo agreement, a Diamond rep told Next TV she had no update on negotiations with Comcast, which is now the second largest pay TV distributor in the U.S. with 13.61 million Xfinity video customers as of the end of March.
Since April 1, Diamond has announced distribution renewals for Bally Sports with Charter Communications, DirecTV, Cox Communications ... and now Fubo.
However, the RSN operator's sports league partners have told its bankruptcy court that they don't believe Diamond can viably offer a restructuring solution without a Comcast renewal.
Major League Baseball, for instance, told the court two weeks ago that the Comcast blackout makes Diamond's restructuring plan, set to be confirmed as early as June 18 by the Houston bankruptcy court, "unconfirmable."
More to come...
