On Saturday morning at Michigan State’s Breslin Center, Maple City Glen Lake won its first girls state high school basketball championship since 1978.
The game, a 60-43 win over Baraga Junior/Senior High School, aired statewide live on Bally Sports Detroit, the regional sports network (RSN) that broadcasts the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s championships in football and boys and girls basketball.
How much longer that broadcast arrangement lasts remains uncertain — a reality faced by teams and sports from the professional major leagues to the minors, colleges, high school, amateur, and recreational sports that rely on such channels nationwide.
Bally Sports Detroit is part of the family of RSNs owned by TV station giant Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. under its Diamond Sports Group subsidiary that, as long expected, on March 14 began its insolvency protection claims in federal bankruptcy court because of billions of dollars in debt.
In Michigan, the Bally Sports channel is best known for airing live Detroit Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons games — as its 18 Bally-branded sister channels do across the country for not only 47 major-league men’s and women’s teams, but countless minor league, college and high school sports.
With the ongoing cord-cutting trend…
