Marlins Fans May Have Lost Ability to Watch the Games This Morning

The Miami Marlins had a thrilling victory over the Colorado Rockies last night, scoring five runs in the 9th and two more in the 10th for their first walkoff win of the season.  According to MLB's Sarah Langs, that game was the first in MLB history to have a 5+ run top of the 1st, a 5+ run bottom of the 9th, and no runs in between.

But if they repeat those heroics today, it might not be on your television. 

Late last night, we got word that a carriage dispute between Comcast and Diamond Sports Group, owner of the Bally Sports regional sports networks, means that Marlins fans who use Comcast woke up this morning to news that they couldn’t watch Bally Sports Florida and Bally Sports Sun, broadcaster of almost all of the team’s games. 

(Important clarification: Diamond Sports Group the broadcaster is a separate entity from Diamond Baseball Holdings, the company that owns several minor league baseball teams across the country.) 

As these things tend to go, both sides have put out statements blaming the other party for the lack of access. 

Comcast has an image on screen when a subscriber tries to tune into those impacted channels that reads “The owner of Bally Sports is in bankruptcy proceedings, and we have offered them multiple options to continue to carry their networks. They have declined each one, and we no longer have the rights to continue carrying their content. As a result, we’ll be issuing proactive monthly credits to customers for the loss of this network.”

A statement that Comcast gave to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explains that it’s expecting to be crediting impacted subscribers by $8 to $10 dollars. 

Not to go quietly, Diamond Sports Group fired back in their statement, explaining that Comcast “refused to engage in substantive discussions despite Diamond offering terms similar to those reached with much larger distributors of ours” and that as a “fans-first company”, they were hoping to resolve this so that broadcasts could resume. They closed the statement with directing Comcast customers to competing services that had carriage agreements in place. 

It’s clear that no one wins here, but the fans are the ones most significantly impacted. The Miami Marlins, short of applying pressure behind the scenes, can’t do anything to resolve this and get their fans the ability to resume watching their games again. And this isn’t just an issue with the Marlins - all eleven Bally Sports teams, including the Atlanta Braves, Detroit Tigers, and Minnesota Twins, are currently also unavailable to Comcast subscribers, as are the NBA and NHL teams that are broadcast on Bally Sports as well.  

MLB.tv is an option for those who live outside of the broadcast area, as is choosing to consume the game via audio-only - the Marlins Radio Network is available on the flagship 940 WINZ and affiliates across Florida.