Will Royals Games Only Be Streamed On Amazon Prime Next Year?

Sports Illustrated FanNation website reported Wednesday that the Kansas City Royals were one of five teams that would have their games exclusively aired on Amazon next season. They got the story from the New York Post. Yet is the story correct?

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After reading both stories it looks like someone at Sports Illustrated either misunderstood the story when they went to write the headline or just thought saying exclusively aired on Amazon was the same as exclusively streamed on Amazon.

Yet, there's a difference. If you can get the games on Bally Sports on cable, then it's not exclusively aired on Amazon. It may be that if you wish to stream the games, you have to go through Amazon. Or the Bally sports app and the Royals will push you over to Amazon if you're a cord cutter. But that's not exclusively on Amazon.

Diamond Sports owns the regional sports networks that broadcast under the Bally Sports brand and is currently in bankruptcy court trying to restructure the business. In Missouri, Bally holds the rights to the Royals, Cardinals, and Blues.

According to the New York Post Diamond Sports is getting the money they need to emerge from bankruptcy. It's getting a 495 million dollar cash infusion after settling with parent company Sinclair Broadcasting, and Amazon will give Diamond $100 million to help the broadcaster emerge from bankruptcy.

As part of that deal,  Amazon will get a minority ownership stake in Diamond and the rights to stream all 162 games of the Kansas City Royals, as well as the Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Tampa Bay Rays, and the Miami Marlins.

The Post article reports, "Diamond, which broadcasts under the Bally’s brand, will continue to televise the 11 MLB teams for which it has rights, including the World Series champion Texas Rangers, on cable."  So yes, as long as your cable company or satellite provider chooses to carry Bally Sports you don't need Amazon to watch the games.

KSHB reports that cable and satellite viewers won't be impacted, however, those who streamed games on the Bally Sports + app last year should expect changes because of the new streaming deal.

How the service on Amazon will be structured and how much it will cost folks who want to stream games have not been detailed.