With Bally Sports Arizona having lost the rights to the major teams it was broadcasting, there wasn’t much point in the channel continuing to operate. As a result, it should not come as too much of a surprise that the channel has now officially shut down.
Bally Sports Arizona has gone through some major changes over the past few months. Firstly, Phoenix Suns ended its deal with Bally Sports, allowing the team to begin its new broadcast deal with Gray Television and even launch a new Suns Live subscription service.
Soon after, the agreement between Bally Sports Arizona and the Arizona Diamondbacks came to an end, allowing the MLB to take back control and offer a direct-to-consumer option similar to the San Diego Padres. Even more recently, the Arizona Coyotes left Bally Sports and then agreed a new broadcast deal with Scripps Sports.
All of which has now resulted in the channel being officially closed down. Bally Sports made the announcement by posting the following message to the Bally Sports Arizona X account.
Following the removal of the Coyotes, Diamondbacks, and Suns, the Bally Sports Arizona schedule was missing its primary content and it is unlikely any subscribers or providers would want to pay for the channel in its current form.
In fact, DirecTV had allegedly stopped paying full price for the channel, resulting in Diamond Sports filing a request in court to order the TV provider to continue paying full price for Bally Sports Arizona.
Considering the big teams had all moved on from Bally Sports Arizona, the closing down of the channel should not adversely affect too many sports fans looking to watch their favorite teams play live.
