What are the chances Twins try a Midwest Sports or Victory with trying to put together Partners, ,Wild, Wolves, Lynx, Loons, Saints, local Colleges

[jaimedude]

I doubt the Twins want to go to one provider like Bally's again and have all eggs in one basket.

Any chance Twins would try to put together a Midwest Sports or Victory together with other Sports teams in a regional Sports Network. Is there any chance with the collapse of Bally's Sports North and the end of the TV contract that the Twins would start up an LLC and see if they could build a regional Sports programing network to the upper Midwest.  Try to develop parthnerships with the Wild, Wolves, MN FC the Loons, University of Minnesota, St Thomas, St Cloud State, Minnesota State-Mankato, UMD, Saint Paul Saints, maybe Horse racing through the local race tracks. Professional wrestling. The problem with Victory was cost and lack of programing. I know this is easier talking about it then actually doing something like this. 

To me the only way this works is if you build an upper Midwest Content sports developer that has multiple media rights, then negotiate a distribution rights deal to air with multiple platforms like Peacock, MAX, Apple, CBS Sports Network,  

Your probably going to have to offer tiered content where you have basic plans, that only get you so many games, and then a tier that gets you all of the games at a higher cost in order to make this work. Maybe offer smaller plans to the over the air networks for limited games. To me it makes sense, you want all the games you pay more, you only want weekend games you pay a little less, you want more viewing options you pay for a higher tier. 

 

[Seth Stohs]

I would love this. As you pointed out, there are a number of ways that they could go with this... 

I think there are numerous possibilities. Ownership/Revenues could be split something like Twins: 35%, Wolves: 25%, Wild: 20%

That leaves another 20%... 

Maybe they get a deal with the Gophers. Or, maybe they get a deal with the NSIC or the MIAC... Maybe they get a deal with St. Thomas. Maybe they put together an agreement with the MSHSL. 

Twins #1 priority, Wolves and Wild try to work their schedules with their leagues to work as many alternate nights as possible and when they play the same night, maybe they alternate playing at 2:00 and 7:00. Or they have a "Plus" station. 

The MIAC games can have a Live game of the week, but can also air replays at any open times during the day, etc. 

I think there could be a SportsCenter like show an hour every day with some highlights and analysis. It could be at like 10:30 pm and they could re-air it a couple times in the morning (MLB Network does this). How good would that be for those leagues to have those teams on a prominent, legitimate TV station? It'd be a great recruiting feature for the regional D2 and D3 schools and a source for their athletic departments. 

But the odds are incredibly low... certainly not by the 2024 season. 

[Trov]

They tried before and failed because cable would not pick them up, because Fox sports forced the issue.  Now that they are out it could be done, but how much can they really make?  Without knowing the Wolves and Wild contracts with Bally they would be hard to bring in, more likely they would need to be a full on partner, which leads to issues too, being so much overlap in games, they would need to have a second channel, like what Bally has.  

In terms of U of M, they have a network and will not be allowed to have games, even for minor sports, broadcast most likely outside the big 10 network.  As for smaller schools, sure they would be willing to sell TV rights, but how much would the Twins be willing to pay for them? The biggest issue is outside the live events how much will they get people to watch, and how much ad space can they sell.  Will they get what they need from tv providers to pay for the channel.  

I personally see the future of sports cast being solo routes with pay for the season streaming options.  Before we were blacked out because of local broadcast rights, but my guess unless a local broadcast is going to pay huge, teams will make more if someone pays 80 to 100 bucks for a full season streaming through MLB or other apps. 

Not sure how many on average numbers from 2023, but in 2021 they were way down, but my guess if someone bought a full season from start, even if team is doing bad and you stop watching by end of year they still got the money.  So for math purpose lets say 125K buy a full season package at 100 bucks.  That is 12.5 million.  Much less than what they got paid from Bally, but if you also sell advertising my guess they would make much more.  I could be wrong.

I do not think the Twins and other local sports will invest in trying to build a network right now.  Too much question in the future of cable/dish and being Twins failed once before will make them pause. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

15 hours ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

Second, I for one do not want to pay for sports that I do not watch.  Bally was not bad as I like the Twins and Wild but I do not watch the soccer, Lynx, or Wolves on Bally.

I think the opposite is true. By attracting a much larger base through all Minnesota sports fans, I suspect the price per user would probably be lower. Advertisers are more likely to buy in, it's easier to get carriers on board, and the channel becomes viable full-time instead of just seasonally.

I believe the problem right now is that television revenues have been artificially propped up by carriers desperately trying to hold onto declining subscriber rates, not the model itself. The Twins aren't worth $55m a year. I don't know if the real value of those rights is $15m or $45m but carriers have been throwing bad money at live sports in hopes of retaining subscribers (who obviously didn't stay anyway).

An all-in-one local sports channel should be viable if the market course corrects to the actual value of said channel, not a loss-leading item to keep subscribers who aren't going to stay anyway.

[DJL44]

Someone mentioned Scripps Sports on a different thread. That could become the local sports option. They already have broadcasting (Ion channel 41) and basic cable carriage.

[DJL44]

3 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

The Twins aren't worth $55m a year. I don't know if the real value of those rights is $15m or $45m but carriers have been throwing bad money at live sports in hopes of retaining subscribers (who obviously didn't stay anyway).

From what I can tell the Twins were profitable for Diamond Sports until you figure in the huge debt service they owed. Sinclair stripped Diamond of its assets and created a corporation designed to go bankrupt.

[DJL44]

I would love to see 45 get the contract for broadcasting the Twins locally. The Twins seem ready to take a little less money in the short term if it grows the TV audience in the long run.

[chaderic20]

I think there's 0% chance of this. The Twins tried that years ago and it failed, so I doubt they have much appetite for trying again. And then there's this:

20 hours ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

For one, many of these leagues may already have multi-year contracts with other entities so to get them all onboard may take years.

Those pro teams have all already sold their broadcast rights to other entities, so they couldn't join until years down the road. And for the colleges, they don't even have control over their broadcast rights even if they wanted to partner with the Twins, which I don't know why they would. Gophers for sure wouldn't, they will get $80-$100m per year from the B1G's media rights deal, and I doubt any new RSN the Twins try to start up could even come remotely close to offering that much.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

From what I can tell the Twins were profitable for Diamond Sports until you figure in the huge debt service they owed. Sinclair stripped Diamond of its assets and created a corporation designed to go bankrupt.

That's certainly true but really, it only accelerated the issue. The bulk of RSN money was propped up through contracts signed amidst declining cable subscriber rates, which are only going to continue to decline. Sinclair taking out massive loans at the peak of the bubble and then going bankrupt certainly accelerated (and worsened) the problem but the core of the problem still exists: a lot of money being paid to an industry that has fewer customers every year.

[DJL44]

8 minutes ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

If 45 broadcasts the Twins, they would need to address out-state and the entire 5-state area.  I am up north and don't think I would get 45 broadcasts given their current structure, although I am not 100% sure of that.

I expect most basic cable that carries channel 5 would also carry 45. If not, that's an easy add.

For outside of Minnesota the solution needs to be streaming on MLB.tv. That would be a huge improvement on the current situation where the Twins are blacked out but unavailable.

[DJL44]

5 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

the core of the problem still exists: a lot of money being paid to an industry that has fewer customers every year.

On the other hand, live sports are clearly the most valuable property on linear television and command a premium for advertising dollars. They need to grow the audience by making the games more easily available and make up the money on advertising.

[Brock Beauchamp]

8 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

On the other hand, live sports are clearly the most valuable property on linear television and command a premium for advertising dollars. They need to grow the audience by making the games more easily available and make up the money on advertising.

Agreed. One of the biggest, and maybe the biggest, mistakes the RSNs made was to tether themselves to cable subscribers for a short-term buck over long-term viability.

I think RSNs have a place and I want to see them succeed but they have to be open to offering their product to every consumer channel, not just cable subscribers.

[DJL44]

Channel 45 is spending $8.8M over 10 years on high school sports tournaments for football, hockey and basketball. That's about 100 games worth of programming for $880,000 a year.

The Twins provide 162 games and would be much higher rated than high school sports. I see a floor for a broadcast contract at $20M a year.

[lecroy24fan]

3 hours ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

If 45 broadcasts the Twins, they would need to address out-state and the entire 5-state area.  I am up north and don't think I would get 45 broadcasts given their current structure, although I am not 100% sure of that.

Du;uth and Austin/Rochester would be easy to cover as Hubbard owns stations in those market as well. So something like offering the station on one of their HD channels or just airing the games locally on one of them would work. And they could offer up the station to other areas as an HD subchannel as well. 

[howeda7]

On 10/18/2023 at 12:43 PM, DJL44 said:

From what I can tell the Twins were profitable for Diamond Sports until you figure in the huge debt service they owed. Sinclair stripped Diamond of its assets and created a corporation designed to go bankrupt.

Bally's/Diamond's issue is that they massive overpaid Fox Sports for the acquisition. And they really were upside down in some of the MLB/Other contracts but the Twins weren't one of them.

[howeda7]

On 10/18/2023 at 2:13 PM, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

If 45 broadcasts the Twins, they would need to address out-state and the entire 5-state area.  I am up north and don't think I would get 45 broadcasts given their current structure, although I am not 100% sure of that.

It would likely work the same as Vikings preseason games. Channel 5/9 whoever pays the Vikings a premium and then resells broadcasts rights to channels in Duluth/Rochester/Fargo/Sioux Falls. There's so many digital sub-channels now it's a virtual lock that they would get on in all those markets. There would also obviously be a streaming option.

[Major League Ready]

On 10/18/2023 at 2:38 PM, DJL44 said:

On the other hand, live sports are clearly the most valuable property on linear television and command a premium for advertising dollars. They need to grow the audience by making the games more easily available and make up the money on advertising.

Bingo.  What is the advertising worth if they make this available through a streaming service without blackouts?  Maybe we will finally make it easy to get games because it ultimately leads to the most revenue for MLB.   Let's hope they develop a plan to maximize viewership and drive advertising revenue.

 They could sell packages just like they do for tickets.  162 / 81 / 40  or 20 games with an option to pay per game.  Nobody is paying for unwanted content in that model.

[wabene]

D Stream that went from $90 a month to $120 and was same old crappy cable business model that engenders acrimony in the customer the longer they are signed up. Said goodbye to that, now it's Fubo at $90 and I just want to drop it altogether. I would gladly pay for a Twins only package. 

[glunn]

I wonder what other teams are doing/planning.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

14 hours ago, glunn said:

I wonder what other teams are doing/planning.

To that end, I wonder if there’s some wrangling with the league office on coordinating an MLB streaming service. With Bally hanging by a thread, close to half the teams are close to coming out of their contract.

[jctwins]

On 10/22/2023 at 1:20 PM, Richie the Rally Goat said:

To that end, I wonder if there’s some wrangling with the league office on coordinating an MLB streaming service. With Bally hanging by a thread, close to half the teams are close to coming out of their contract.

Considering something like this was their contingency plan I wouldn't be surprised if they start to move toward more of a national platform similar to the NFL, but with regional broadcasts.