Oct 02, 2024
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Bally Sports Kansas City is threatening to not air regular season Royals games in 2025. The decision is part of a reorganization plan by Diamond Sports Group, the parent company behind Bally Sports Kansas City. Diamond's plan would drop the Royals and a handful of other contracts they had in place for 2025 but would keep their deal for next year with the Atlanta Braves. The plan was introduced in bankruptcy court on Wednesday.   Royals’ stingy bullpen fuels Kansas City in Baltimore Wild Card sweep Frustration with Bally Sports has grown since the channel is available on some cable providers, but not all of them. Bally Sports introduced a streaming service to provide fans more direct access to games, but Royals fan Andrew Coselmon said it's not performing well. “It’s terrible. It’s the worst streaming service I’ve ever interacted with,” he said. “It’s the worst way to watch a baseball game but it’s the only way to watch a baseball game if you want to watch the Royals.” Most Royals fans who spoke with FOX4 were relieved to hear the news. “As a person that grew up in Kansas City, I want to be able to watch each and every game,” said Tucker Shay. “So, it’s definitely been stressful.” “You can’t just turn the TV on, scroll through the channels and find it anymore, it is tough,” Aadyn Delgado echoed. “It pulls you away a little bit.” So where can you watch Royals games next year? The answer right now is still unclear, according to Chris Etheridge, professor of sports media at The University of Kansas. “The market’s a little bit of a mess and it’s been frustrating to a lot of fans,” he said. “The consumer is stuck in the middle.” Etheridge said one option is for the team to partner with another national network, such as ESPN or Amazon Prime. He said another option is to start their own streaming service, which other professional teams have done. He thinks that option is less likely to happen. “The amount of capital that goes into something like that, while the team is talking about building a new stadium, that seems like a lot of change all at the same time,” he explained. Finally, Etheridge said that the team could still renegotiate a contract with Diamond Sports Group. Fans, on the other hand, are looking for easier access to the games. “They need to make it possible for the fans to watch it on TV,” said Victor Stringer. “All I want to see is more people be able to watch the Royals,” Coselmon said. “If that means a local deal, if that means a bigger platform like Amazon, as long as more people have access to the games.” Where to watch, listen to the Royals in ALDS against Yankees Etheridge did not rule out the possibility that the Royals games could go untelevised. “The biggest challenge for the sports teams and for the fans is that when you can’t watch the game on television, it’s harder to feel like you’re a part of the team and a part of the community,” Etheridge noted. Others feel like the limited access from Bally Sports Kansas City has caused that to start already. “You can feel it too,” Coselmon said. “Even this season, we’ve got so much to be excited about but it’s taking people a while to get motivated and encouraged because a lot of people haven’t been able to watch what we’ve been able to watch.”
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