SOUTHPORT, Conn. and EL SEGUNDO, Calif.—Diamond Sports Group (“Diamond” or the “Company”) and DirecTV have announced that they have reached a multi-year renewal of their distribution agreement for the continued carriage of Diamond’s portfolio of regional sports networks (RSNs).
Diamond’s agreement with DirecTV follows Diamond’s previously announced multi-year renewal of its distribution agreement with Charter Communications, Inc and Cox Communications and the failure of its talks with Comcast, which dropped the RSN’s on April 30.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Under the agreement, DirecTV and DirecTV STREAM customers who select a CHOICETM, ULTIMATE or PREMIER package will maintain access to live, local MLB, NBA and NHL games and team related content featured on Diamond’s several RSN channels. Additionally, these customers will soon be able to stream Diamond’s RSN content by authenticating with their DirecTV subscription credentials on the Bally Sports app.
Any DirecTV or DirecTV STREAM customers who do not have direct access to Diamond’s RSN channels as part of their primary video service will be able to purchase Diamond’s Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) product via DirecTV and access the full complement of local DTC content for any teams to which Diamond retains DTC rights, the companies said.
“We are pleased to extend our relationship with DirecTV to provide high quality local sports telecasts for passionate fans in the home markets of our team partners,” said David Preschlack, CEO of Diamond. “This is a significant development for Diamond, and we highly value the relationship we have built with DirecTV and their customers over the course of many years. We remain focused on executing the steps necessary to reorganize Diamond with a structure that drives sustainable value for our stakeholders, including our distributors and league and team partners.”
“DirecTV has always been a sports leader and we continue to see significant opportunity for both our residential and commercial customers in local sports,” Rob Thun, chief content officer of DirecTV, stated: We want to ensure our customers receive more flexibility, choice and value, and this agreement provides them with those capabilities. Diamond’s regional sports networks remain a key component of our live sports offering, and we look forward to working with Diamond and the many popular MLB, NBA, NHL, and other teams it retains for years to come under this new agreement.”
