Amazon Investment Helps Rescue Bally Sports Networks Operator Diamond From Bankruptcy

deadline.com:

Amazon is investing in Diamond Sports Group, which operates the Bally-branded regional sports networks, as part of a plan for the Sinclair subsidiary to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Along with Amazon’s investment in a minority stake in Diamond, the parties have also agreed that Prime Video will become the primary route for customers to buy Bally Sports streaming access to track their local teams.

The added distribution muscle is a boost to Diamond, which launched Bally Sports+ as a $20-a-month offering in mid-2022. Takeup of the direct-to-consumer offering has been gradual and the costly process of marketing to and acquiring customers was severely hampered by Diamond filing for bankruptcy in March 2023.

The announcement of the post-bankruptcy plan emphasized that Diamond will continue to pursue traditional carriage with pay-TV distributors, with those agreements still throwing off meaningful cash.