As the calendar turns to May, the Minnesota Twins are the hottest team in baseball and seem to be finally turning a corner after a tough start. The team is riding a nine game winning streak, has an offense that's finally starting to come to life, and players like Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa who are on an All-Star trajectory if not in the early running for MVP.
Things are finally starting to turnaround for the Twins, but hardly anyone in Minnesota is going to be able to watch them.
On Tuesday night it was announced that Comcast was dropping Bally Sports North from its cable package. The reason stems from Diamond Sports Group being unable or unwilling to agree to a deal with Comcast as it navigates bankruptcy, but whatever legal mumbo-jumbo that gets tossed out boils down to Twins fans not being able to watch the team.
There are plenty of folks to blame for this absolute disaster, but the Pohlads releasing a statement seemingly trying skirt accountability is perhaps the most infuriating part of this whole mess.
Twins have nobody to blame but themselves for Bally Sports North fiasco
After Bally Sports North went dark for Comcast subscribers, the Twins released a hollow and tone deaf statement to fans. It was nothing more than a slap to the face of fans who are already sick of what they've had to put up with as far as ownership choosing money over everything else.
It's a depressingly vintage move by Twins ownership, one that serves as nothing more than an insult to fans.
From the #MNTwins regarding their TV situation as Comcast and Diamond Sports/Bally’s feud, leaving fans at home without games possibly as soon as tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/eK6xV2JpnR
— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) May 1, 2024
There's nothing incorrect about the statement itself, as the Twins are not in any way responsible for the act of Comcast dropping Bally Sports North. The Twins are, however, very responsible for putting fans in this situation and the statement they released is just further proof that they really don't care.
Fans were given no warning that this was even a possibility, and the idea that the Twins were blindsided is hard to believe. If that's the case, then it makes the decision to get back into bed with Bally Sports North and Diamond Sports Group even worse than it already was.
Maybe it was wishful thinking -- or blissful naiveté -- but the silver lining to the TV rights drama this winter was that Twins fans might finally be free from Bally Sports North. Not having a TV deal was an opportunity for the team to either partner with a better provider or create a direct-to-consumer service like YES Network or Marquee that allowed fans the ability to have access to the team 24/7.
Everyone wanted something like that and it seemed like a blessing in disguise. Making matters even more hopeful were statements from ownership and executives like Dave St. Peter that indicated making games easier to watch was a top priority for the team.
Like Charlie Brown and the football, it all turned out to be empty promises.
The Twins waited all offseason, slashed the payroll by $30 million, and smothered any hype that was created back in October before ultimately going back to Bally Sports North. That's where the money was -- money that wasn't reinvested into the team -- and now fans are left holding the bag.
Rather than a statement full of more hollowness, Twins fans deserve an apology.
It's impossible to overstate how unbeliveably sad it is that fans mean so little to a team that means so much to them. As long as the checks keep clearing and hot dogs keep getting sold, though, it's pretty clear that nobody in a position to actually make things better is going to do anything about it.