What do Minnesota Twins fans and that old lady in Titanic have in common? They've both been waiting far too long for something that will make them feel whole again.
Much like Jack in that movie, Twins games have sunk to the bottom of the television ocean and are almost nowhere to be found. A bad deal with Diamond Sports Group got even worse for fans when Comcast dropped Bally Sports from its nationwide package at the beginning of May.
This means a majority of Twins Territory hasn't been able to watch the team on TV for two months and counting, which isn't earning the Pohlad family any points with an already livid fanbase. It started with slashing the payroll by $30 million, a direct result of the TV rights deal going belly-up, and the divide has only continued to grow as fans are without easy access to the team.
While there still isn't any actual resolution, there seems to potentially be good news on the horizon.
Minnesota Twins games might be back on TV soon
Diamond attorney Brian Hermann was in court on Wednesday and stated that there seems to be progress being made with Comcast to restore Bally Sports on its service. Nothing is concrete, but he noted that the progress has been "substantial", which feels like a good thing.
"We believe that we have made substantial progress on resolving our issues with Comcast, and we have the intention of fully documenting and executing an agreement with Comcast to broadcast our RSNs in the very near term," Hermann said.
The clock is ticking as far as any sort of progress actually meanining anything. Most Twins fans have essentially been blacked out from watching the team, and the season is already halfway over. There are ways to watch games, like subscribing to things like Fubo or having a cable package other than Comcast, but that's like needing to buy name-brad ceral and being forced to find very specific store-brand stuff.
It's been impossible for Twins fans to navigate Bally Sports North in the past and this lastest issue hasn't made things any easier. One silver lining to the chaos with the TV deal this winter was it afforded the Twins a chance to create a direct-to-consumer product like the Yankees have with YES Network or the Cubs with Marquee.
Instead, the Pohlads cut a check and pocketed the profit (no payroll was meaingfully added after the deal was made) and the wedge was only driven deeper.
Getting the Twins back on television for a majority of fans is something that just flatout needs to happen, but it's a band-aid on a much larger issue. It's a baby steps situation, but this whole mess is a reminder of just how terrible the user experience is for fans and how much the organization needs to fundementally change moving forward.
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