Sinclair's Diamond Sports Group subsidiary has paid the Cincinnati Reds the initial payment for the team's 2023 local TV rights, within a mandated 15-day grace period after the April 17 due date, keeping the MLB club on regional sports network (RSN) Bally Sports Ohio. 

The Reds, which own a portion of the RSN, had made arrangements with distributors Charter Communications and DirecTV, and the team was prepared to self-produce its own games on a new channel, starting Saturday, if bankrupt Diamond hadn't made the payment. 

News of the payment was confirmed by ESPN and Sports Business Journal. 

Sinclair Broadcast Group paid $10.6 billion for 19 Fox Sports RSNs in 2019, and formed a subsidiary, Diamond, to manage the channels, which were rebranded as "Bally Sports." That was when margins on the channels averaged around 50%.

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Now, with cord-cutting and spiraling team TV licensing costs, margins are well below 20% ... and Diamond is in Chapter 11 restructuring, trying to trade equity to its secondary creditors to relieve about $8 billion of debt, and also also seeking to restructure deals with individual teams for which its losing money. 

In fact, Diamond didn't make its 2023 rights payments to the Reds, Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins, aiming to cough up the coin after a Texas bankruptcy court reconfigured Diamond's deals with those individual teams. 

Last week, the judge thwarted Major League Baseball's attempt to break the Diamondbacks, Guardians, Rangers and Twins free from their Bally Sports contracts so the league could assist the clubs in broadcasting their own games. The judge ruled that Diamond could pay half of what it owed each team, and that would keep the clubs under the Bally Sports umbrella, at least for now. 

The Reds case was different, however, since the club owns a portion of Bally Sports Ohio. The Reds also contracted their own production crew and hired their own announcers.

It was believed the new channel would kick off Saturday for a game between the Reds and the visiting Chicago White Sox.  

Update: Diamond Sports Group paid the Reds their local TV rights payment within the required 15-day grace period, averting the scenario, described below, in which the team broke free from Bally Sports Ohio and began showing their games on their own cable channel.

Now a month into the 2023 Major League Baseball season, the Cincinnati Reds are 12-14 and already circling the drain in the National League Central Division, 7 1/2 games back of the surprising Pittsburgh Pirates. 

But in terms of pro sports teams challenging the currently embattled regional sports networks model, they are decidedly No. 1. 

On Monday, Next TV confirmed an earlier report that the Reds have handshake agreements with pay TV distributors Charter Communications, the dominant cable TV supplier in the Cincinnati DMA, as well as DirecTV to deploy the team local TV rights on a new channel, starting Saturday, when the Reds take on the Chicago White Sox. 

This isn't a certainly, but certainly a distinct possibility. 

Also read: Bally Sports Bankruptcy: The Cincinnati Reds Become Latest MLB Team to Get Stiffed By Sinclair's Diamond

The Reds currently have a local broadcast TV deal with Sinclair's bankrupt Diamond Sports Group, reportedly valued at $50 million - $60 million a season, to show the club's non-nationally televised games on regional sports network channel Bally Sports Ohio. 

Diamond entered into Chapter 11 restructuring in mid-March, looking to restructure money-losing deals it has with specific MLB, NBA and NHL teams, and trade equity with its creditors for around $8 billion of debt relief. 

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As it did earlier with for other money-losing team deals, Diamond missed the April 17 due date for its initial 2023 season rights payment to the Reds, but has kept up with showing Reds games on Bally Sports Ohio. 

On Friday, May 5, Apple TV Plus, through its "Friday Night Baseball" national deal with MLB, is set to present the opener of a three-game series featuring the White Sox visiting Cincinnati. 

Friday also marks the end of the grace period Diamond has to pay the Reds. 

Should the Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary fail to make its payment to the team by that date, an inside source confirmed to Next TV that the team will go forward with a plan to form a new RSN of its own. 

And no, apparently the Texas bankruptcy court overseeing Diamond's restructuring can't stop them. 

Last month, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez ordered Diamond to pay half of what it currently owes to four MLB teams under the Bally Sports umbrella it had previously stiffed, pending restructuring of the individual club deals -- the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins. 

This stopped these MLB teams from executing on their own plans to show their games independently from Bally Sports.

According to the Sports Business Journal, the Reds weren't included in that order because the team owns a portion of Bally Sports Ohio. The "joint-venture" status of the channel puts it out of the jurisdiction of the judge, SBJ said. 

As the pub also noted, the Reds have access to the production crew for their games, since the workers are freelance contractors.  And the team employs the on-air talent that works its games for Bally Sports Ohio, which includes play-by-play announcer John Sadak, and analysts Chris Welsh and Barry Larkin.

Again, no official announcement is expected until Friday, pending the conclusion of Diamond's grace period. Expect the Reds and the team's distributors to use Apple's "Friday Night Baseball" live stream as a promotional launch platform, should the new RSN get the green-light. 

All of this is not to say it's entirely out of the question that Diamond puts a stop to the whole enterprise by rendering its payment. A source with knowledge of the negotiations told Next TV Diamond might do this simply to keep MLB from gaining a foothold on its baseball TV rights. 

We'll know more Friday. 

When Sinclair's Diamond Sports Group subsidiary entered bankruptcy restructuring in March, it was widely believed that the Cincinnati Reds would be among four Major League Baseball teams in Diamond's Bally Sports regional sports network portfolio that wouldn't be paid their TV rights fee for the just-started MLB season. 

And according to Sports Business Journal's John Ourand, Diamond has indeed followed through on that expectation. Diamond still has a 15-day grace period to pay the Reds, but it appears the subsidiary wants the bankruptcy court to restructure its money-losing Reds contract before it pays anything. 

The Reds, Ourand reported, might be the first MLB team affected by the Bally Sports bankruptcy to follow through on MLB's earlier declaration that teams not paid by Diamond for the 2023 season terminate their RSN deal and start broadcasting/streaming their own games. but more on that in a second. 

Also read: MLB Files Emergency Motion to Force Diamond to Either Pay the Twins and Guardians or Give Up the TV Rights

Before Ourand's report, the fate of the Reds' Bally Sports deal had been somewhat of a mystery. 

Earlier, Diamond skipped payments for two of the four teams listed as being money-losers for Bally Sports -- the Arizona Diamondbacks and Cleveland Guardians. The subsidiary did make its payment on time to the fourth team on the "money-losers" list, the World Series-contending San Diego Padres, but it skipped out on paying the Minnesota Twins, which weren't on the original list. 

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MLB lawyers have petitioned the Texas bankruptcy court adjudicating Diamond's case to cut affected teams loose from their Diamond contracts and stop Bally Sports from broadcasting the teams' games. 

MBL Commissioner Rob Manfred has said his league is ready to step in and help affected teams, including the Reds, stream their games without Bally Sports' help. 

Sinclair and Diamond, meanwhile, are trying to trade equity in exchange for around $8 billion in debt tied to Bally Sports. They want the court to restructure deals for the Diamondbacks, Twins, Guardians and Reds to "market rates." 

In the meantime, Sinclair and Diamond want business with their respective league and team partners to resume as usual. 

Like the Guardians, Reds games are shown on Bally Sports Ohio. Unlike the other three clubs not being paid by Diamond, however, the Reds own a stake in their RSN, which was part of the 15-year deal it signed with Diamond back i 2017. 

Ourand reports that the Reds have already begun developing plans to broadcast/stream their games following a default by Diamond, He predicts 

Because of their ownership stake in the RSN, the Reds have access to the production crew for their games, and can even enlist play-by-play announcer John Sadak and analysts Chris Welsh and Barry Larkin.

Ourand predicts that the Reds could take over their broadcasts for a May 6 game between the Reds and Chicago White Sox, with the May 5 game between those opponents streamed under national MLB contract by Apple TV Plus. 

ESPN's telecast of the 2015 Home Run Derby last night slammed its way to a 4.9 overnight rating, according to Nielsen.

The event, which airs annually prior to Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, was up 26% over last year's edition which averaged a 3.9 rating, said ESPN.

The Derby, which was held at the Cincinnati Reds' Great American Ball Park, was won by the Reds' slugger Todd Frazier (pictured) in front of the hometown fans.  

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The telecast also drew the most Twitter activity for a sports event last night, drawing 6.6 million unique Twitter users, according to Nielsen's daily Twitter TV Ratings report.