In my capacity as a professional sports degenerate for D Magazine, I am asked all manner of questions pertaining to the games we all watch. Among the most frequent question concerns how we watch those games. Namely, what the hell is going on with Bally Sports Southwest?
For a while, that question was rhetorical. What the hell is going on with Bally Sports Southwest and its parent company, Diamond Sports, which holds the broadcast rights to three of the biggest local teams—the Mavericks, Stars, and Rangers—yet cannot be accessed by millions of people because the channel is carried only on two cable networks and one streaming service?
But since Diamond declared bankruptcy in March, the question has evolved into a real inquiry. In the months that followed, teams such as the Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz, and San Diego Padres have begun divesting themselves from regional sports networks (RSNs), which are becoming a relic of a dying media landscape. Diamond Sports is the biggest dinosaur of all. At its peak, the company controlled 19 Bally Sports networks around the country that held the media rights of 42 NBA, MLB, and NHL teams.
None of that chaos, however, has stopped the three North Texas franchises from continuing to broadcast unabated on Bally Sports Southwest—even as the network is teetering on the brink of financial collapse, to the point that The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov and Evan Drellich reported last month that Diamond may terminate its agreement with the Rangers due to financial insolvency. (The uncertainty alone already looms over Texas’ free agency decisions in its World Series defense.)
So, again: what the hell is going on with Bally Sports Southwest?
I have no idea. What I do have is Vorkunov’s phone number. We’ve been pals for years, and I edited his writing during part of my own time at The Athletic. So I dialed him up to ask a lot of the questions people ask me, so we can all get some answers on the state of this ramshackle sports network, what the immediate future might look like, what you should hope for as a consumer, and, most important, when will it suck a whole lot less for everyone to watch their favorite sports teams?
Here’s our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Vork, let’s start with the basics. For those who know nothing aside from Diamond Sports making it a complete pain in the ass to watch their favorite sports teams, please explain what has happened with the bankruptcy and where things broadly stand.
