The American Lawyer’s Litigation Daily named Jim Bromley and Benjamin Walker its “Litigators of the Week” for securing a major win for the Commissioner of Major League Baseball in Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy. On June 2, after a two-day hearing, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Lopez in the Southern District of Texas ruled in MLB’s favor and held that Diamond Sports Group’s regional sports networks must pay the full fees due under their telecast rights agreements with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins (which S&C also represented) and Texas Rangers.
Diamond Sports and its networks, which filed for Chapter 11 in March, had argued that these telecast fees should be reduced because the market for traditional broadcast rights has drastically changed.
Jim and Ben elicited testimony from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and Diamond Sport’s CEO that MLB had offered in January to reacquire all of the team telecast rights from Diamond Sports networks and assume the associated fee obligations, plus provide additional consideration to Diamond. In ruling for MLB, Judge Lopez pointed to this offer as evidence of the continued value of these rights, even in an era of widespread “cord-cutting.”
Read the “Litigator of the Week” article here.