Q&A: For the Angels, Bally Sports is Plan A. What could Plan B be?
Three days after the Angels concluded the worst season in franchise history, their fans faced a new and urgent concern: Would they be able to watch their team on television next season?
The answer appears to be yes, and probably in the same way they did this season. On Wednesday, however, the parent company of Bally Sports indicated that it was prepared to step away from broadcasting games of the Angels and all but one other team.
A federal bankruptcy court has the final say, so nothing is definitive for now, and the Angels and Major League Baseball declined to comment. Here are questions and answers about what we do know.
What is happening in court, and what is happening with the Angels?
Bally filed for bankruptcy 19 months ago. Its latest plan to get out of bankruptcy could involve walking away from contracts for all teams besides the Atlanta Braves. It does not preclude other teams from negotiating new contracts that would save Bally millions in rights fees.
With Bally Sports’ parent company declaring bankruptcy, fans of the Kings, Ducks and the Angels might have to change how they access game broadcasts.
For the Angels, that is Plan A. The team is in discussion with Bally to restructure its current deal. The Angels would surrender some guaranteed revenue in order to avoid the financial uncertainty of a streaming-first future.
If the Angels do not reach a restructured deal with Bally, would I be able to watch the Angels on television next year?
Almost certainly. MLB could deliver the games as it now does for the San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies: offering a streaming option while cutting deals with cable and satellite companies. As an example, the Padres’ monthly streaming price this year was $19.99.
Could the Angels explore other options?
They could. The Ducks, for instance, are offering a free streaming option as well as 65 free, over-the-air games on Channel 11 or Channel 13. The Ducks are one of several NBA and NHL teams sacrificing revenue — at least in the short term — in exchange for the ability to reach any fan in their local market.
Where does MLB stand?
Unlike the NBA and NHL, MLB has urged its teams not to take a new Bally’s deal at a significant discount.
MLB long has hoped to launch a national streaming package, provided the league could secure streaming rights for a critical mass of its 30 teams.
The Bally strategy could push MLB in that direction. The plan unveiled Wednesday would free 11 teams from any ties to Bally.
With three other MLB teams recently dropped by another broadcast company, that could give the league the opportunity to market streaming rights to roughly half its teams at once.
MLB should be paying close attention to a trial in which the NFL is the primary defendant against allegations that its Sunday Ticket package violates antitrust law.
One party that might be interested in those rights: ESPN, for its ESPN+ service. ESPN reportedly is thinking about whether to renew or renegotiate its national MLB package — highlighted by Sunday Night Baseball, the Home Run Derby and wild-card games — and streaming rights could be a lure to retain ESPN.
If the Angels and other teams return to Bally or go elsewhere, that could complicate the MLB plans, depending on the terms of those deals. Generally, regional sports networks offer streaming rights only to subscribers. Last season, five MLB teams — not including the Angels — had granted Bally the rights to stream their games to non-subscribers.
Would the Dodgers be part of a national streaming package?
Almost certainly not. The Dodgers’ record $8.35-billion contract with SportsNet LA extends through 2038.
The Dodgers and other large-market teams that own local cable channels — including the New York Yankees (YES), the Boston Red Sox (NESN) and Chicago Cubs (Marquee) — stand to make much more money on their own. It is unlikely that small-market clubs would agree to pay the billions it would take to buy out the big-bucks teams, even if those teams agreed to entertain a buyout offer.
What is the Angels’ current television deal?
In 2011, what was then called Fox Sports had lost the Lakers to Time Warner Cable, and the Dodgers’ television rights were about to hit the market. Angels owner Arte Moreno brilliantly leveraged that situation, opting out of a Fox Sports contract worth $500 million and signing a new one worth $3 billion.
That contract, inherited by Bally, remains in effect at the moment. The Angels were owed $112 million in rights fees from Bally in 2023, according to Moreno. The team generated an estimated $407 million in total revenue that year, according to Sportico.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred should be concerned that the big-market Angels continue to struggle with no end in sight under Arte Moreno’s ownership.
The uncertainty over what might happen to about 28% of the team’s revenue could dampen the amount Moreno might approve in player spending over the coming winter.
What has commissioner Rob Manfred said about teams that have lost their regional sports network?
“We think that reach is a really important change,” Manfred said at the All-Star Game in July.
“San Diego is kind of the leader in the clubhouse there, approaching 40,000 subscribers, which is a really good number. Having said that, from a revenue perspective, it is not generating what the RSNs did. The RSNs were a great business. Lots of people paid for programming they didn’t necessarily want, and it’s hard to replicate that kind of revenue.”
In 2023, the league guaranteed that any team losing its local television deal would retain at least 80% of the revenue from that deal, with MLB making up any shortfall. Is that guarantee still in effect?
No.
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