The biggest regional sports broadcaster is fighting for its life.

Diamond Sports Group, which carries the games of more than 40 major sports teams across the country and filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, is in the throes of negotiations with cable companies and leagues that will collectively help determine whether the company will be liquidated.

Diamond owes rights payments to the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League in a matter of days. Its distribution deal with the cable company Charter Communications is up for renewal in several months. Its creditors are divided on whether to attempt to revive the company. And Diamond is mired in a legal spat with the parent company, Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Diamond’s potential unraveling could have significant implications for leagues and fans, who in recent years have seen an ever-growing share of sports content move to streaming platforms. Leagues, meanwhile, generate significant amounts of revenue from local broadcasters, which help fund league operations and pay for players’ salaries.

The threat that Diamond will face liquidation has intensified. Its dilemmas are a sign of how fragile once-lucrative regional sports networks have become as streaming upends how Americans watch TV.

Executives at Diamond, which operates Bally Sports-branded networks, are pressing cable companies including Comcast for multiyear carriage agreements that would keep games on cable and provide a reduced but predictable stream of revenue. Meanwhile, Diamond is asking the NBA for a longer-term rights deal than its current year-to-year agreement and is negotiating with representatives from the NBA and the NHL to potentially reduce its payments, people familiar with the discussions said.

Forging such deals is Diamond’s best shot at presenting creditors with a plan to eventually exit bankruptcy instead of being wound down, people familiar with the matter said. It is an uphill battle.

Diamond on Friday requested bankruptcy court permission for a two-month extension to file a plan of reorganization.

Earlier this year, Diamond’s financial struggles led Major League Baseball to take over the broadcasts of the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, allowing local fans to watch the teams on MLB.TV, the league’s streaming platform, instead of having to pay for cable TV. The league at the time said it would help partially plug the gap in broadcasting revenue in the event Diamond didn’t pay teams in full.

In baseball, Diamond signed deals with individual teams, while it has negotiated directly with the NBA and NHL. Diamond’s deals center on the right to broadcast games to the local team’s market, unlike deals that entertainment companies such as Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have secured to broadcast games nationally.

Comcast and Diamond are in talks to extend their current carriage deal, people familiar with the matter said. The cable giant is reluctant to entertain the longer-term arrangement that the company is seeking. Diamond executives feel a one-year deal is too short and likely a path to liquidation, according to other people close to the talks.

Other such discussions are on the horizon. Diamond’s deal with Charter Communications is up at the end of February. The regional sports network operator was able to extend its deal with DirecTV to next September, from the end of this year, people familiar with the matter said.

The future of Diamond’s rights is also in flux. Diamond and the NBA have for months discussed a new two-year to three-year local rights deal, but so far no arrangement has been completed

Under Diamond’s existing agreement with the NBA, if the company misses a single rights payment to any team, rights revert to the league. Diamond hopes a new, multiyear agreement would help it rework unprofitable aspects of the current deal, people familiar with the matter said.

Diamond owes payments to the NBA and NHL ahead of the start of their respective seasons on Oct. 24 and Oct. 10, people familiar with the matter said.

Diamond executives hope that forging new agreements with cable companies and leagues will result in the distribution and rights they need to continue airing games on cable while continuing to build its $19.99 a month streaming offering, BallySports+. The company also hopes to gain distribution on YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV or other streaming bundles of channels.

If Diamond doesn’t pay the NBA, the league has talked to teams about distributing games on TV and through the NBA App with team-specific direct to consumer subscriptions, a person familiar with those plans said.

This week Diamond, Sinclair, its creditors, and representatives of the NBA, MLB and NHL held a two-day mediation session in Washington, D.C. The groups didn’t leave with any agreement that would help keep the company together and restructure it financially, people familiar with the matter said. Negotiations are continuing.

Diamond creditors are divided on the best way forward. The company has more than $8 billion in debt stemming from its 2019 acquisition of regional sports networks from Disney.

Some creditors say a winddown is the swiftest and best resolution, while others say Diamond could operate profitably if it can renegotiate the terms of its commercial arrangements.

Diamond is also in the throes of a legal fight with its parent company. Diamond in August sued Sinclair for allegedly “milking" $1.5 billion out of the company before it went bankrupt. Sinclair has denied the allegations.