Arizona Coyotes address TV future after regional channel dropped Diamondbacks

Already with an uncertain future in their state, the Arizona Coyotes addressed another potential problem on Tuesday night. The NHL franchise is the last of the originally teams that will remain on Bally Sports Arizona after the channel's owner, Diamond Sports Group, dropped the Arizona Diamondbacks. The fate of Bally Sports Arizona is up in the air after other key changes within the last month.

In a statement posted on NHL.com on Tuesday, the Coyotes wrote:

"We are fully aware of the developments regarding Bally Sports Arizona. The Arizona Coyotes remain under contract with Bally Sports Arizona, and remain hopeful that the network will continue to broadcast our games this season. Nonetheless, we will continue to evaluate all of our options, as needed, and will ensure that our great fans across the Valley are able to watch our games this fall. We will have no further comment until we have news to announce."

Earlier on Tuesday, a bankruptcy judge in Houston approved the termination of Diamond Sports' contract with the Diamondbacks after the two sides were unable to come to terms on a new deal which would have reduced the media firm's payments to the baseball club. Major League Baseball took over the production of Diamondbacks games, though still using the production team that worked on Bally Sports Arizona. It's a similar arrangement with the San Diego Padres, who cut ties with Diamond Sports when a rights payment was skipped in May.

Bally Sports Arizona also lost the NBA's Suns and WNBA's Mercury after the owner of those teams, Mat Ishiba, signed a deal to air those games over local broadcast TV. That deal was held up in court after Diamond Sports filed an injunction, but the deal was allowed to go through last week.

The Coyotes themselves have been in perpetual limbo since arriving to the Phoenix metropolitan area in 1996. The original Winnipeg Jets relocated to the region and spent the first decade in America West Arena (now called the Footprint Center), sharing the arena with the Suns, who were the primary tenant. The team moved to what's called Desert Diamond Arena in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, spending 20 years in the venue until they were essentially evicted by the city after the 2021-22 season. They're currently playing at Mullet Arena on the Arizona State University campus, and have pushed to build a new arena in Tempe.