As expected, the Tigers are sticking with their long-time TV home.
Lawyers for Diamond Sports Group, which owns FanDuel Sports Network Detroit (formerly Bally Sports Detroit), said in a court filing Wednesday night that it reached an amended deal to continuing broadcasting Tigers games for 2025.
The filing, made ahead of a hearing in federal bankruptcy court scheduled for Thursday, said new deals have been reached with the Tigers, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals.
Financial terms were not disclosed, though it is expected teams re-upping with Diamond Sports Group were positioned to take significant cuts in the rights fees amid the current rocky financial climate for regional-sports networks. The Red Wings and Pistons both took rights-fees cuts to stay on the network for the 2024-25 season, and the Tigers’ cut could be worth tens of millions, which would be a substantial cut to the team’s operating revenue.
It’s also unclear how long the amended deal would be for; the Tigers and Red Wings, when they’ve re-upped in the past with, first Fox Sports Detroit, and then Bally Sports Detroit, announced multi-year deals. This one could be on shorter terms, given the uncertainty of Diamond’s feasibility moving forward, as it tries to emerge from bankruptcy.
The Tigers old deal, which Diamond said weeks ago that it couldn’t honor, was to expire at the end of the 2025 season.
The Tigers had few options other than returning to FanDuel Sports Network Detroit, other than going under the Major League Baseball umbrella for distribution, as other teams have done — but that would’ve meant splitting from the Wings, also owned by the Ilitches — or creating their own network, which is a massive financial undertaking that Christopher Ilitch has floated in the past but hasn’t mentioned as an option for several years.
Even with the cut in rights fees, sticking with FanDuel Sports Network Detroit certainly was worth the most money.
Officials for FanDuel Sports Network Detroit and the Tigers haven’t commented on Wednesday’s court filing.
Diamond Sports Group, which owns 16 RSNs and broadcasts dozens of games for teams in the MLB, NHL and NBA, is trying to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the end of the year, and Thursday’s court hearing could go a ways toward making that happen if a judge approves its restructuring plans. That’s why there’s been a rash of news items announced this week, including Diamond Sports Group getting set to offer single-game streaming purchases (starting at $6.99 a game), and Amazon Prime Video officially coming on board to stream games (at an add-on cost above the Prime subscription) and months of will-they-or-won’t-they chatter.
Diamond Sports Group filed for bankruptcy in the spring of 2023, citing billions of debts amid the shrinking revenues, mostly attributed to cord-cutting. Fewer cable customers has meant fewer viewers, which means fewer ad dollars.
Bally Sports was rebranded to the FanDuel Sports Network in late October, with the nation’s largest online sportsbook agreeing to spend a certain amount of money on ads. The graphics and colors of game broadcasts changed with the switch, but the on-air talent has remained the same.