Earlier this year, Diamond Sports, the parent company of Bally Sports North, filed for bankruptcy. As a result, the company stopped making payments to several MLB teams, including the Minnesota Twins. In response, the Twins filed a lawsuit against Diamond to recover the $54.8 million owed for the broadcasting rights of this season’s games.
After a brief legal dispute, the Twins secured the broadcasting rights for the remainder of the 2023 season. However, this short-term solution must address the more significant issue for Minnesota in the long term. The question remains: Where will the 2023 AL Central champions be broadcast next year and beyond?
The Twins have a unique opportunity to differentiate themselves from other teams. While ongoing negotiations or plans may be in the works, no official announcement has been made yet. Therefore, I will go over a few options that the Twins could potentially consider.
They should strongly consider creating their own network, similar to the YES Network that the New York Yankees own. The YES Network is a regional sports network that broadcasts games, programs, and specialty content for the Yankees, the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, Major League Soccer’s New York City FC, and the WNBA’s New York Liberty.
The Yankees and their partners purchased the network, Sinclair Broadcast Group, a subsidiary of Diamond Sports, and Amazon, in 2019 for $3.47 billion. Earlier this spring, the Yankees launched the YES Network streaming service, a direct-to-consumer subscription service that allows fans to stream games without a cable subscription. By following this model, the Twins could potentially generate more revenue and have more control over how they present their team to fans.
If the Twins cannot start another network with other owners, they could partner with the MLB to create their network and subscription service, similar to what the San Diego Padres did this year. Major League Baseball helped the Padres reclaim their rights by taking over the team’s broadcasts when San Diego.
San Diego’s games were immediately available on several providers, including Charter, Spectrum, Cox, DirecTV, and AT&T U-Verse. That allowed more homes to see Padres games, and fans inside San Diego’s market could buy the MLB.com app, which meant that Padres games would no longer be blacked out for them. An approach like this could be groundbreaking for the Midwest and Minnesota, allowing them to reach a broader audience regardless of blackout location restrictions.
Speaking of streaming, one idea straight out of left field, though not entirely too crazy, is for the Twins to possibly team up with other affected ball clubs and partner with a powerhouse company like Apple to stream their games on their platform. As crazy as it sounds, Apple has been making a slow but aggressive push into the sports market. For them, it’s simply about timing, and this could be the time for teams and the tech giant to act. They have already paid $85 million for the seven-year streaming rights to Friday Night Lights on Apple TV+.
Last year, they signed a 10-year, $2.5 billion deal with Major League Soccer to stream virtually all the games on the Apple platform. Apple charges a much lower cost for an annual membership for MLS than the competition, and a partnership with MLB’s affected teams likely would provide fans the same excitement for a season pass at a much lower cost than the competition.
Apple has also been linked to the possibility of buying ESPN from the Walt Disney Company for around $50 billion. If that happens, it would give the tech giant the rights to the NFL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, NHL, UFC, the PGA Tour, tennis Grand Slams, Formula 1, and college football’s Big 12 and SEC Conferences — plus ESPN’s first two Super Bowls after the 2026 and 2030 seasons.
Whatever happens going into the offseason, the Minnesota Twins and other MLB have more creative options than sticking with Bally Sports. Maybe their network is the way to go, or it makes more sense financially to partner with the MLB to stream the games. Ultimately, I hope the Twins can develop something unique this offseason for baseball fans. Hopefully, they can find a better solution that allows them to continue to grow their fanbase and reach new audiences while generating more revenue.
