Bally’s Owner Pushes Lawsuit Against FCC Alleging Racism - Denying His Effort to Buy TV Group Tegna

Bally’s Owner Pushes Lawsuit Against FCC Alleging Racism - Denying His Effort to Buy TV Group Tegna

Soo Kim, the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Standard General, the firm that owns Bally’s — the gaming company that owns Rhode Island’s two casinos — is in the midst of a federal lawsuit related to the broadcast group Tegna.

Kim also chairs the board of Bally’s, which is headquartered in Providence, and has been a prominent figure for the company in community events.

Yes, it is the same Tegna that Nexstar, the parent company of WPRI-12, is trying to buy, and that deal has been believed to be a key element in the Jimmy Kimmel LIVE cancelation controversy.

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It was widely reported that Nexstar, in an effort to curry favor with the Trump administration and specifically, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, canceled Kimmel. President Trump has repeatedly called for Kimmel's firing over the past few years.

That move only lasted a little more than a week. Consumers, advertisers, and even Republican lawmakers bucked at the Nexstar move.

Nexstar needs FCC approval and rule changes to move forward with the Tegna deal.

The Wall Street Journal’s headline during the controversy was “The Nexstar CEO Who Kicked Jimmy Kimmel Off the Air.” It was a profile of Perry Sook of Nexstar.

 

Kim Claims Discrimination

Kim’s interests go far beyond the gaming company. 

In 2022, he led the effort to take Tegna private in a deal that was estimated at $8.6 billion. Tegna owns 64 stations in 51 markets in the United States.

The deal immediately generated criticism from unions and lawmakers, who were worried about the takeover's implications for workers and the public.

He filed a lawsuit claiming the FCC and other media interests blocked his Standard General’s deal for Tegna and instead directed the sale to a group including media executive Byron Allen, who is Black.

Functionally, Kim alleges the sale in 2022 was pushed by Allen because there were interests that wanted to see the sale go to a Black entrepreneur rather than a man of Korean descent.

A month ago, Kim's lawsuit was dismissed, but last week, Kim and Standard General appealed.

The filing comes a month after U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras dismissed the lawsuit, saying, "Absent any facts tying the FCC's actions to race, the court finds these arguments similarly unpersuasive as evincing racial animus."

Judge Contreras found that, "Plaintiffs' claims of 'race-based and xenophobic rhetoric in FCC filings' melt away at the slightest of scrutiny."

In the opinion, Judge Contreras wrote that the allegations that the media players, which included unions and advocacy organizations, "stoked fears about 'shadowy foreign investors,' the 'risks to...democracy' posed by 'anonymous foreign investment in American newsrooms,' and 'China['s] increased tensions in the Taiwan Strait.'"

"To begin, that use of 'shadowy foreign investors' clearly referred to the 'involvement of large hedge funds headquartered in the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands,' and not Kim, whose identity everyone knew," the court said; the reference to Taiwan pertains to an unrelated political event. "Read in context, no reasonable person would assume this reference to China was actually an attack on Kim's race."

Kim and Standard General seek $136 million in damages from former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and ex-Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer; Allen Media Group and its owner, Byron Allen, as an individual; Dish Network Corp. and, individually, company head Charlie Ergen; unions NewsGuild-CWA and NABET-CWA; United Church of Christ; Common Cause; and David Goodfriend for their purported efforts that ultimately prevented Standard Media from effectively merging with TEGNA and making Deb McDermott its CEO.

GoLocal requested an interview with Kim on Friday. He did not respond.