Minnesota Twins games won’t be produced and distributed by MLB this season.
Per the Star Tribune, Diamond Sports paid their rights fee to the Twins on Saturday, which will keep the team’s games on Bally Sports North through the rest of this season. The payment was the final one this year on a contract worth $54.8 million in 2023, as reported by the Star Tribune.
For Twins fans, the on-time payment (with no changes to the current contract) means that cord-cutters are still out of luck for the remainder of the 2023 season. The Twins are not one of the five MLB teams (Brewers, Marlins, Rays, Royals, Tigers) whose games are available on Bally Sports+, Diamond’s direct-to-consumer offering. Diamond has been seeking the streaming rights for the remaining eight teams to no avail, and the Padres’ refusal to give those rights up played a part in Diamond dropping the team in May.
The Twins’ contract with Diamond expires after this season. It’s reportedly an unprofitable one, and the Star Tribune notes that Bally Sports North has lost 37% of its subscribers over the last decade. Diamond wants to retain the Twins’ rights (it also owns the rights to the NBA’s Timberwolves, the NHL’s Wild, and the WNBA’s Lynx), but it’s hard to see them agreeing to a new contract without acquiring the Twins’ streaming rights.
If both sides refuse to budge on the streaming rights discussion, it’s tough to see a deal getting done for the 2024 season and beyond. Even with cutting their annual payment to the Twins, I can’t see Diamond signing a new long-term deal with a team that doesn’t include streaming rights. And given some of the strong words from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred targeted at Diamond and the uncertainty surrounding the company’s future, I can’t see the Twins giving up their streaming rights without a fight.
20 years ago, the Twins attempted to launch their own RSN. But Victory Sports One didn’t even last a year thanks to carriage issues, leading to the team signing a deal with what was then Fox Sports North a month into the 2004 season.
