DirecTV’s top execs -- including CEO Bill Morrow and Chief Content Officer Rob Thun -- visited MLB HQ Thursday afternoon for a high-level meeting with the league’s top brass, including Commissioner Rob Manfred and CRO Noah Garden, reports SBJ's John Ourand. The meeting mirrored similar ones that MLB has set up with the country’s biggest distributors recently, like Comcast, Charter and YouTube.
The issue: What to do with local team rights if some start reverting back to MLB in the wake of Diamond Sports Group’s recent Chapter 11 filing.
These meetings took on a greater sense of urgency last week, as MLB believes it’s a week away from reclaiming the rights to the Padres, whose games are carried on the Diamond-owned Bally Sports San Diego. Diamond missed its most recent rights fee payment to the Padres earlier this month. The company has a cure period that lasts until 11:59pm on Wednesday, when it can make the payment without penalty.
Diamond Sports’ independent board will vote by the middle of next week on whether it will allow the grace period to lapse without making a payment. Part of the holdup is that Diamond has been trying to obtain other rights, such as streaming rights, that the Padres have been unwilling to part with. Even without those rights, Diamond may decide that the team is too popular and too good to risk losing.
Ourand looked deeper into the RSN situation ahead of Opening Day for MLB next week. Get an Early Access look at the piece in next week's magazine here.
