On March 31st, Fox Sports, a group of regional sports networks (e.g., Fox Sports South, Fox Sports Midwest), was rebranded as “Bally Sports”. The Bally name (which rhymes with Sally), was put on all Fox Sports channels, social media, and apps seemingly overnight, to the utter confusion of sports fans (including me).
But how did this happen? It’s a doozy, and yet another example of how corporate ownership in media affects your everyday life.
Let’s take a look.
The story
As you might have guessed, Fox Sports was created and originally owned by Fox. “Fox”, technically called 21st Century Fox, notably owned Fox Broadcasting Network (the TV studio), 20th Century Fox (the movie studio – and a naming doozy in itself), and a 30% stake in Hulu.
In December 2017, however, Disney announced its plans to purchase Fox for $71B. Disney CEO Bob Iger said in April 2019 that the main reason for the acquisition was to fortify Disney+ (released later that year in November) with Fox content, such as National Geographic and The Simpsons. However, a happy side effect of the acquisition were Fox’s regional sports channels, Fox Sports, which would give Disney and their ABC / ESPN channels a near monopoly of regional sports TV markets.
As you might have expected, the Feds didn’t like that idea. The Department of Justice, responsible for enforcing US antitrust laws, ended up approving Disney’s acquisition of Fox, but on the condition that Disney sell Fox Sports.
Disney agreed, and ended up selling Fox Sports to Diamond Sports Group in August of 2019 for $9.6B. Diamond Sports was a newly created joint-venture company backed by Sinclair Broadcasting Group and Entertainment Studios, two companies that operate local TV channels throughout the US. Sinclair and Entertainment Studios eventually chose to rename the channels (they probably couldn’t keep using the “Fox” name) and had an auction for the naming rights.
The winner? Casino operator Bally’s Corporation, who bought the channels in a bid to further integrate local sports with gambling. Ultimately, they landed on a name for the channels – “Bally Sports”.
Wrapping up
After a long winding path, from Fox to Disney to Sinclair / Entertainment Studios via Diamond Sports, we finally reach Bally Sports. I’ll reiterate once again, corporate ownership in media determines everything in TV / streaming.
However, things have not been going too well for Sinclair / Entertainment Studios since August of 2019.
Just as sports have been hurt by the pandemic, local sports channels too have been hurt. In November 2020, a little over a year after purchasing it, Sinclair wrote down the value of Fox Sports (now Bally Sports) by $4.23B (!) – over 40% of the purchase price!
Maybe not the slam dunk they were hoping for…
