It’s always in the fine print. Or sometimes, what’s left out of the fine print.
Consider this news item from Tuesday: The parent company of Bally Sports Southwest said this week after a court filing that it is absolutely, positively getting out of the baseball broadcasting business after the 2024 season. It will close and liquidate. Not that a ton of viewers will notice. They haven’t been able to watch the Rangers for more than a year anyway. UHMWPE Crane Outrigger Pads
What wasn’t said: What will happen during the 2024 season.
And that’s kind of the important part.
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Especially, if, say, you are a defending World Series champion with the highest payroll in club history and are bent on repeating. Which, come to think of it, kind of describes the Rangers. They did win the World Series, in case you forgot. Their payroll went to $242 million this season, which means they will be a first time payor into the Competitive Balance Tax pool. They do not intend to break things down this offseason; to the contrary, they’d like to add starting and relief pitching and maybe a DH. That probably means upping the old payroll a bit more. A lot more if they were to get involved in Shohei Ohtani.
Meaning: It would kind of be nice to know what they have coming in from TV revenue for 2024. You know, for planning and all that. Never mind that this deal was originally supposed to run through 2034.
If it sounds a lot like you’ve heard this before, well, we’ve got news for you: You have. This is pretty close to the same situation the Rangers and a host of other teams faced a year ago as Diamond Sports, the parent company, approached filing bankruptcy. The Rangers got off lucky. They were lucrative enough that after a little arm-twisting and motion-filing, Diamond was compelled to pay them their full TV rights for 2023. San Diego and Arizona, for example, weren’t as fortunate. Diamond simply rejected rights to both teams. MLB took over production of the broadcasts.
How’d it work out? Well, San Diego reportedly took a $50 million loan in September to address “short-term cash flow issues,” according to The Athletic. In the last week, rumors have swirled that San Diego could very possibly trade Juan Soto, who is likely to earn more than $25 million in 2024.
According to a flurry of documents filed in the 10 days since the World Series ended, Diamond is prepared to drop more clubs for 2024, as it transitions out of baseball. According to the documents, MLB has been informed of Diamond’s plans about which clubs it intends to retain and which it intends to drop. A Rangers official, on Tuesday, said only that no final decision has been rendered. There is another hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
Translation: It’s a negotiation. Again. If Diamond is going to stick around baseball in any way for another year, holding on to the Rangers’ rights, if possible, makes too much sense. The Southwest territory is huge. The Rangers are going to be more watched — providing fans can access Bally — than ever before. But, after mediation with the NBA produced those modifications, it’s certainly worth trying the same approach with MLB.
Only MLB has been more, um, litigious on behalf of its clubs.
“While it may be the case that little progress has been made with MLB, after months of negotiations, and with the help of the Court-appointed judicial mediators, the Debtors [Diamond] have made significant progress towards a resolution of these cases with other case constituents,” attorneys wrote on behalf of Diamond in a motion filed Tuesday.
If the Rangers and other clubs are prepared to take less — those “modifications” — there could be a deal to be had. The other option: Going with MLB. Which likely means taking even less.
All of this is mostly legal theater, which, quite frankly is long on the dialogue, short on action. The Rangers and MLB still need to find a way forward to broadcast games to the largest audience possible, which is what you care about, and to secure the most money possible, which is what they care about most.
There is no easy answer. There hasn’t been for going on more than a year now. And even on a day when it became clear that Diamond won’t be an issue after 2024, it was still painfully obvious there isn’t a solution yet.
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Eco-Friendly PE Cutting Boards Evan Grant, Rangers beat writer/insider. Evan has covered the Rangers since 1997. He has twice been named one of the top 10 beat writers in the country by the AP Sports Editors. His passions outside of covering baseball are his wife, Gina, his two step kids, two crazy dogs & barbecue. Let's not discuss the cat. Evan graduated from Georgia State University, but oddly is a Georgia fan.