As Diamond Sports Group aims to fully emerge from Ch. 11 bankruptcy with a new strategy to diminish overall debt and continue broadcasting regional games for professional sports teams, there is reportedly a change taking place behind the scenes. Michael Connelly, the senior vice president and executive producer of FanDuel Sports Network, is said to be leaving the company. Connelly, who has worked in production and management roles for regional sports networks for the last two decades, had held the executive producer title for the cluster of regional sports networks since 2011. Daniel Kaplan was first to report the news of Connelly’s exit from Diamond Sports Group for Awful Announcing.
According to a source cited in the report, Diamond Sports Group chief executive officer David Preschlack sought to reduce the production budget from $180 million to $150 million. Yet there is ambiguity towards whether or not his egress was being laid off as part of the cost cutting or if it was an unrelated mutual decision.
“As part of our reorganization, we are reassessing our organizational needs in order to modernize a company that has remained unchanged for decades,” Diamond Sports Group said in a statement. “The needs and opportunities we face today demand a forward-looking approach, and we are fully committed to evolving to meet them with purpose and clarity.”
Diamond Sports Group currently holds local broadcast rights for 13 franchises in the National Basketball Association, along with eight National Hockey League teams and six Major League Baseball organizations. Bally’s Corporation previously held naming rights for the broadcast entities; however, FanDuel Corporation agreed to a deal with Diamond Sports Group amid its process of crafting a restructuring support agreement. Additionally, Diamond came to a commercial deal with Amazon that will allow subscribers to watch the regional sports network through Prime Video. The Sinclair subsidiary also reached carriage deals with several key distributors, including with Comcast after an impasse that lasted several months.
Diamond aims for its regional sports networks to be profitable by 2027, reducing its debt from about $9 billion to $200 million upon completion of the restructuring process. Moreover, Diamond will have more than $100 million in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet at this time. Several executives with Diamond, including Preschlack, are remaining in their roles with the company, but there will be new members of its board upon full emergence from bankruptcy.
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