Twins president teases potentially major update about a new TV deal

The Minnesota Twins were tough to watch in more than a few ways last season.

A late-season collapse squandered what appeared to be an almost certain chance of making the playoffs, with the Twins instead finishing the year in fourth place. It's the team's worst finish in the AL Central standings since 2021 when Minnesota came in last and won fewer than 75 games.

This year's collapse was worse than how the result looks in the standings, as it's how the Twins tumbled that has everyone upset. It's why there's already been major changes to the coaching staff with more expected to impact the roster.

While the team was hard to watch from a baseball perspective, they were also just hard to watch on television. Thanks to a bad TV deal, Twins games were inaccessible to a large portion of the fan base; Bally Sports was dropped by Comcast in May which made it impossible for fans to catch games unless they changed cable providers. It eventually came back on the air a few months later, but it was an unacceptable situation that ownership didn't really seem to care about.

That was one of many kicks to the shin that fans had to endure this year, but it's looking like things are about to change.

Twins tease potentially huge change to the way fans can watch games

On Monday the Twins made it official that they'd be returning to WCCO as the team's radio partner. There was some talk of potentially hopping over to KFAN and SKOR North, but in the end the team stayed where it was.

That might not be the case when it comes to the next television deal, though.

In a piece highlighting the new radio deal with WCCO, Star Tribune beat writer Bobby Nightengale passed along a quote from Twins president Dave St. Peter that should perk up ears all across Twins Territory.

“We’re working very diligently on trying to finalize what that looks like for 2025 and beyond. I’m excited about the prospects of that,” St. Peter said. “I certainly believe there will be widespread access for Twins baseball on both radio and television, both through what I would call a traditional cable/satellite distribution model, but maybe more importantly in the environment we’re in, a direct-to-consumer or streaming option. More on that to come.

There's not aton of mystery to the plan, as the idea of a direct-to-consumer service for Twins games has long been on everyone's wish list. Bally Sports was a horrible service, from how hard it was to access games as part of a cable package but also how it was impossible to stream games through the app.

Fans outside of the Minnesota area had an easier time watching games than those close to home, which is a massive problem the team wants to fix.

This was the hope last year when Diamond Sports Group's bankruptcy situation opened a potential path for the Twins to create their own streaming service. The Cubs have Marquee, the Yankees have YES, and there's absolutely a market for a Twins-centric service that fans pay to access games on but also other content around the team.

While ownership eventually took the path of least resistance and effort, returning to Bally Sports North after they cut a quick check, this offers a chance to finally march into modern times. Cable isn't the way anyone consumes content anymore, whether it's baseball or TV shows, and the Twins remaining stuck in the past hurt the team's accesbility last season.

For a franchise that always puts revenue above everything else, it's almost unfathomable that they haven't created a direct-to-consumer model that doubles as a printing press for profit. It's not only a good for business, but could help massage a prickly payroll situation that continues to hang over everything the team does.

We'll see what happens, but it finally seems like the Twins are going to take a step into the future and make games easier for fans to watch.

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