Xfinity Dumps Bally’s Sports Detroit…For Now

If you try to watch Wednesday afternoon's Detroit Tigers game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Comerica Park, and you're a Xfinity (Or Comcast) subscriber, you won't be able to watch it.

That's because at midnight on Tuesday night, Xfinity dropped Bally's Sports Detroit (BSD) from its lineup for now.  As Bally's parent company, Diamond Sports Group, could not come to an agreement on a new deal with Xfinity before Tuesday night's deadline.

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Negotiations on a deal between Xfinity and Diamond Sports Group are expected to continue.  But if a new deal isn't reached by the fall, you will be unable to see the Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Pistons, Michigan High School football finals, as well as other BSD programming.

Cable companies across America have had financial problems in recent years as "cord-cutting" has been prevalent as customers have found other ways to watch their favorite television programs (i.e. streaming services).  They have gone away from the "bundling" format which has forced cable customers to pay for channels/networks they don't want to watch.

In fact, Diamond Sports Group filed for bankruptcy last year.  And Major League Baseball had to take over the production and distribution of TV games for a pair of MLB teams.  Including the National League champion Arizona Diamondbacks.

This is not a new phenomenon.  The Big Ten Network has had multiple issues with Xfinity ever since BTN went on the air in 2007.  And remember when YouTube TV got into a dispute with Bally's a few years ago??

Whether Diamond Sports and Xfinity can come to an agreement remains to be seen.

But here's some good news...

You can hear ALL of the Detroit Tigers games...for FREE!!!  Only on our sister station, Lansing's Big Talker 1240 WJIM.  Including Wednesday's broadcast, which begins at 12:45pm with Dan Dickerson, Andy Dirks, and Daniella Bruce.