• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

Blood Diamond

Yes, yes, Diamond is emerging from bankruptcy with that $115 million Amazon dowry, but the industry’s largest owner of regional sports networks has a whole new slew of problems to solve now.

major league baseball
As the Major League Baseball negotiations remain stalemated just a month before the season commences, Diamond C.E.O. David Preschlack doesn’t have time to screw around—he needs to make deals to bring in revenue to service the debt, and stat. Photo: Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images
John Ourand
February 29, 2024

Where does one even begin with the saga of Diamond Sports, the country’s largest and most troubled owner of regional sports networks? Does one start at the original sin, when Bob Iger was forced by antitrust laws to flip a portfolio of Fox Sports networks to Sinclair for about $10.5 billion, including a noose of $8 billion in debt, as an addendum to Disney’s (retrospectively questionable) $70 billion-plus consummation of the tastier Murdoch assets? Or does one begin with the wholesale collapse of the linear TV bundle and (retrospectively unwise) decision made by Fox Sports executives years ago to spend $100 million annually on local broadcast rights for teams like the Texas Rangers, or $60 million per year to air the always under-delivering and themselves debt-strapped San Diego Padres?