Minnesota Twins games will remain on Bally Sports North in 2024, and while the agreement gives the team certainty about their media rights this season, it’s not a long-term fix, and the same issues fans had last season remain.
This week, Twins president Dave St. Peter discussed the team’s media rights and the deal with Bally Sports North, admitting “it’s not a perfect outcome for anyone,” per the Star Tribune.
“We’re happy to be back with Bally Sports North. We know they’ll do a tremendous job in 2024, just as they have for the many years they’ve been the home of Twins baseball,” team President Dave St. Peter insisted. “At the same time, we know it’s not a perfect outcome for anyone.”
The Twins’ deal with Bally Sports North expired after the 2023 season. Despite the team searching for a new broadcast partner, it couldn’t find one and returned to Bally Sports North on a one-year deal for 2024 despite the ongoing bankruptcy process of the Diamond Sports Group, which operates the Bally Sports RSNs.
Minnesota was one of the seven remaining Bally Sports MLB teams that did not sell its digital rights to the company, meaning the team’s in-market fans couldn’t watch them with a subscription to Bally Sports+. Fans in the Twins’ viewing area can only watch the team in 2024 with a subscription to a cable, satellite, or streaming provider that offers access to Bally Sports North.
The five MLB teams that sold their digital rights to Diamond are the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, and Tampa Bay Rays. Going back a year and a half, MLB didn’t seem keen on adding more teams, including the Twins, to that list.
St. Peter sympathized with fans’ concerns and said the team was already working on a solution for the 2025 season.
“We’re sensitive to the fact that some of our fans are finding it difficult to watch our games, and we want to rectify that as soon as we can,” St. Peter said. “We’re already working on 2025. We’ve had a lot of different conversations about the future of Twins television, and those conversations will continue.”
While that’s all well and good, the takeaway here is that despite the team’s best efforts, the status quo will remain in 2024, with less money coming into the Twins’ coffers. Will another year be able to change that situation? If it does, keep an eye on Scripps, which owns Ion affiliate KPXM in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market. An MLB team hasn’t taken the leap from cable to broadcast like NBA and NHL teams have over the last year-plus, but barring the launch of a new regional sports network (which seems unlikely), the Twins seem like they’d be in an ideal situation to make the jump.
