Imagine watching superstars like Jazz Chisholm Jr. and 2022 NL Cy Young award winner Sandy Alcantara for free?! As we patiently (or not that patiently) wait for Spring Training to end and for the season to begin (remembering that game results in Spring Training don't matter), more news about the Miami Marlins is coming out. This is big news as it will affect your game watching experience. Do you remember when I wrote about how a bankruptcy was affecting The Fish? There's more on that now...
Miami Marlins games might be free to watch...for a while.
Diamond Sports Group owns 14 Bally Sports regional sports networks and is expected to file for bankruptcy on St. Patrick's Day this Friday March 17. Diamond owes $140 million to their creditors and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that he was monitoring the situation, and coming up with backup plans in case the networks won't be able to show the games.
The 14 teams in question are the Miami Marlins, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, San Diego Padres, Minnesota Twins, Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Angels. Diamond in fact plans to reject the deals with Cincinnati, Cleveland, Arizona and San Diego. Interestingly, the San Diego contract is $20 million in the red.
MLB is planning to take over the local TV broadcasts for the four teams and stream their games for free. MLB also already attempted to acquire the television rights for the other 8 teams. So far Diamond rejected this attempt, but with their bankruptcy looming they might not be holding out for much longer. It seems very likely in my opinion that the Miami Marlins will ultimately end up becoming on of those streamed teams.
The 2023 season promises to be an interesting one for the Miami Marlins and I strongly recommend you to go to loanDepot Park for some great promotions. The fact that Miami Marlins games may be streamed for free in the near future is an added bonus for sure.