What Happens Now that Bally Sports’ Parent Company Missed a Payment to the Twins?

I am not a bankruptcy lawyer, and sure MLB lawyers know what they are doing, but my limited knowledge is once someone claims bankruptcy, you cannot seek payments from them.  Now, the timing of the bankruptcy may play a major roll in this, as they did not seek to back out of the contract for the Diamond Backs because they are a creditor because the non-payment was before the bankruptcy.  However, I might imagine the bankruptcy court might rule now the Twins are a creditor and dismiss MLB's motion.  If so, they bankruptcy court will let it all play out.  I think it would be helpful for some article to, here or elsewhere where they consult with a bankruptcy attorney to express an opinion as to how this will play out. 

I sure hope the Twins end up on MLB.tv for local streaming I would gladly pay the $15 a month to kill the $50 a month Xfinity charges for the base cable package to get the Twins 

Me, like thousands of other Twins fans have been unable to watch the Twins on home TV.  Ever since we dropped cable we switched to three streaming services and of course they all dropped it.  We haven't been able to watch the Twins for a couple of years unless we go to a bar or restaurant or in person for at least the past two years.  So not much has changed for me.  I follow the Twins on radio.  But I sure miss not being able to watch them. 

I am going to guess the Twins get a payment at 11:59pm on April 13.

I would gladly pay $15 a month to watch the Twins. I just hope they include home games. I think being able to watch your favorite club play all of their games would make you want to attend a game in person even more. Any rumors about whether the home schedule will be blacked out? 

If I'm still blacked out here in Iowa, what's the point?

In 2020 they averaged over 140,000 viewers per game.  It's a fraction of that now because of distribution but I don't see why they can't return to those levels.   If that's the average viewership, the number of people potentially willing to stream the product is something significantly above 140,000 viewers.   The audience is out there.  They need to find a good way to service that audience.  Also, removing the blackout would effectively cut the price per game in half which would obviously make for a more attractive product.

The new rules, especially pacer of play could bolster viewership as well.

I was at best a sporadic viewer back when I had cable, but it seemed like it was a challenge to find the time to watch more than a couple innings (a short attention span probably fed into that as well).  The cost of cable just was not worth the benefit of having it in our household after kids all moved out.  It is true, a quicker game is an enticement, but I am now conditioned to simply just live without it and catch highlights afterwards or listen to the radio if I happen to be driving.  Clearly, I am part of the problem!

1 hour ago, heresthething said:

charge a high price to the Twins fans willing to pay for the streaming service to get to that 40 million mark for the Twins

Except it isn't just subscriber money, it's also some of the best advertising rates in television.

So if it moves to mlbtv will I not get that either because yputubetv dropped it?

19 hours ago, KirbyHawk75 said:

So if it moves to mlbtv will I not get that either because yputubetv dropped it?

If it moves to MLB.TV you will be able to watch the games. I have had both MLB.TV and Youtubetv for a few years. The only difference is you will have to watch the games on the mlb app or through their website instead of through Youtubetv like in previous years.

On 4/7/2023 at 9:15 AM, Trov said:

I am not a bankruptcy lawyer, and sure MLB lawyers know what they are doing, but my limited knowledge is once someone claims bankruptcy, you cannot seek payments from them.  Now, the timing of the bankruptcy may play a major roll in this, as they did not seek to back out of the contract for the Diamond Backs because they are a creditor because the non-payment was before the bankruptcy.  However, I might imagine the bankruptcy court might rule now the Twins are a creditor and dismiss MLB's motion.  If so, they bankruptcy court will let it all play out.  I think it would be helpful for some article to, here or elsewhere where they consult with a bankruptcy attorney to express an opinion as to how this will play out. 

The bankruptcy is irrelevant to this particular issue.  MLB isn't claiming that the Twins are owed something, they are claiming that Bally is stealing from them.  The analogy is that someone agrees to buy your house and on the appointed day, doesn't pay you.  They arrive and say they filed for bankruptcy last week, so you can't ask them for the money but you still have to let them have the house.  Don't give them the house, nothing requires you to continue to do business with them at that point.