It's been a long and frustrating winter for fans, but the Minnesota Twins are finally back. Last season the Twins ended a miserable 19-year postseason losing streak and played deeper into October than they have since 2002.
Rather than dwell on the moves the Twins didn't makes, like properly replacing Sonny Gray, it's worth remembering that there's plenty of things to be excited about. Both Royce Lewis and Edouard Julien are primed to follow up their rookie seasons with even better sophomore campaigns, and the youth movement they started is going to continue this season.
Austin Martin and Brooks Lee are expected to be in the mix this season, and we could see more young pitchers like Marco Raya and David Festa follow in the footsteps of Bailey Ober and Loue Varland.
Lest we forget the starpower the Twins are running back. Pablo Lopez received Cy Young votes last year, Carlos Correa's postseason reminded everyone why he got a $200M deal, and Byron Buxton is already hyping up his return to the lineup.
Minnesota no doubt whiffed on truly improving the roster this winter, but the lack of movement shouldn't distract from the fact that there's already a lot to love about this team already.
How to watch the Twins on cable in 2024
Update (5/1) -- Comcast announced that Bally Sports North has been dropped from its cable package due to challenges with Diamond Sports Group.
One of the biggest narratives of the offseason was the TV rights drama with Diamond Sports Group. If you missed it, congratulations on not having a constant three-month headache. The Twins operated most of the offseason without a TV deal, both due to Diamond going bankrupt and the team's deal having run out at the end of the season.
Minnesota had no television deal and the place they were expecting to have one had no money. It's was the worst timing possible and it's why the team had to adjust its payroll. In the end, we went all the way around the world of chaos to land right back where we started -- Twins games will be broadcast on Bally Sports North in 2024.
Cabel Provider | Does it Carry Bally Sports North? |
|---|---|
Comcast/Xfinity | No |
DirecTV | Yes |
Spectrum | No |
The constant challenge with Bally is that if you don't have cable you're going to have a hard time streaming the games. Anyone who does have a traditional cable package will be able to watch the Twins on Bally Sports North the same way as always.
Bally isn't the only channel that will be carrying Twins games, though. With Minnesota having broken through to a higher tier of seriousness, the Twins will likely be featured on more FS1, FOX, and ESPN games this year as nationally televised broadcasts.
Channel | Twins TV Coverage Area |
|---|---|
Bally Sports North | Most of the southeast US except Florida |
FS1 or Fox | Nationwide (select games) |
ESPN | Nationwide (select games) |
TBS | Nationwide (select games) |
One new wrinkle to the Bally Sports North coverage is the updated announcing booth. After four decades, Dick Bremer was pushed to the side and replaced by Cory Provus. It was a bittersweet moment as all indications are that Bremer was forced out of the gig but Provus is universally beloved by Twins fans for his work as the team's radio play-by-play announcer.
Provus making the jump to television is an exciting development, though, and could be a precursor to whatever new television ground the team hopefully breaks in 2025.
How to stream the Twins without cable in 2024
Here's where things get tricky. Most folks these days do not have a traditional cable package but Bally Sports North is nearly impossible to watch anywhere other than with a cable box. Almost every commonly used streaming service doesn't carry Bally Sports North, which complicates the seemingly simple task of watching a local broadcast of a baseball game.
There are, however, some workarounds that cord cutting Twins fans around the country might be able to use.
Third-party apps are the way to go, but be mindful of which one to use since very few actually carry Twins games. Bally Sports has a streaming service but the Twins aren't part of it, and both Hulu and YouTubeTV are blacked out as well. fuboTV and DirecTV are the two best streaming options because they appear to be the only options.
Streaming Service | Does it Carry Bally Sports North? |
|---|---|
Bally Sports App | No |
Hulu Live | No |
SlingTV | No |
YouTube TV | No |
fuboTV | Yes |
DirecTV Stream | Yes |
How to watch the Twins on FuboTV
If Spectrum is not something you want to get involved with for cable, fuboTV is actually a really great alternative. Not only does it carry Bally Sports North but it has a pretty wide range of other live local and regional programming which effectively makes this a direct alternative to Spectrum and other local options.
A base plan costs $79.99 a month, but that is a bargain compared to what some other local cable packages cost combined with the headache of trying to find Twins games. Click here to sign up for a free trial and see if it makes your life is a little easier.
How to watch the Twins on Apple TV
Last year Apple TV+ introduced an exclusive package of MLB games that would air on Friday nights throughout the summer. That schedule will be returning agan this year, and offers another alternative to watching Twins games other than tuning into Bally Sports North.
The catch is that you need to be subsrcibed to Apple TV+ in order to watch the games. The good news is that the number of games that Apple broadcasts is pretty limited and within that the Twins might not get circled too many times (they played three exclusive games last season).
Are Twins games on Amazon Prime?
Something we heard a lot about this winter was how the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy could result in games streaming locally on Amazon Prime. While this will be the case for some teams, the Twins are not going to be part of that group.
Why make things that easy?
It all boils down to digital rights, which is why there's such a hangup about being able to find Twins games on Bally Sports streaming apps. A direct-to-consumer streaming option is specifically prohibited in the new contract with Diamond Sports Group and the Twins hanging onto the digital rights to broadcasts means streaming games on a service like Amazon is not possible.
That could change in the future but it's not an option for this upcoming season. Fans will hear a lot about Amazon streaming local games, but the Twins are not a part of this so don't be fooled -- or get your hopes up.
How to order MLB Extra Innings/MLB TV
Most of the chaos around the television rights deal had to do with how games are broadcast regionally. Twins fans are spread out throughout the country, though, and those outside of the Minnesota market are luckily immunue to the frustrations that Bally Sports North causes.
This is thanks to MLB.tv and MLB Extra Innings. Twins fans who are out-of-market can subsrcibe to either service and watch non-local broadcasts of games with realtive ease. The only complication arises when the Twins are in whatever market a fan lives in (i.e. if you live in Chicago, games against the White Sox and Cubs would be blacked out).
It's a small price to pay for the convinence of streaming Twins games.