Earlier this week, it was announced that the saga between the Texas Rangers and Bally Sports could be coming to a close after this upcoming season.
Diamond Sports, the ownership group of Bally Sports announced via a court filing that after the 2024 season, Bally will no longer be broadcasting baseball.
This dismantling will still have to go through a court but if approved by a judge, the Texas Rangers and the ten other MLB teams who have their games broadcasted by Bally Sports will be able to seek new TV deals for the 2025 season.
Last season, Bally Sports lost the rights to both the San Deigo Padres and the eventual NL Champion Arizona Diamondbacks after a bankruptcy judge turned those team’s TV deals over to Major League Baseball.
In April of last year, there were questions about whether or not Bally Sports would make their final payments to the Rangers. However, with Texas being one of their biggest revenue-generating teams, Diamond Sports kept the Rangers TV rights.
Bally Sports has been broadcasting Rangers, Mavs, Stars, and Wings games since April of 2021 after claiming the rights from Fox Sports which had been broadcasting games since 1996.
Since the group took over, Direct TV Stream has been the only streaming service that Bally Sports has been available on. Many fans were furious with the change after watching Fox Sports Southwest on streaming services like Hulu, YouTube TV, and others.
If the court were to rule against Bally Sports, it would be interesting to see where Rangers games will be broadcasted during the 2025 season and beyond.
Four teams are currently with NBC regional sports and one would wonder if they try to gain more teams that are experiencing the Bally fallout.
Another intriguing option would be if local teams such as the Rangers, Mavs, Stars, and Wings would find a local network to broadcast games. We saw this recently with the Houston Astros who have just rebranded to a network they are calling the Space City Sports Network.
No matter what happens, Rangers fans could be watching their team play on a different channel starting in 2025. With the Rangers’ recent success, a new TV deal could see the team grow in popularity if games are made more accessible.
