RandBall: Is there good news on the horizon for fans trying to watch Bally Sports North?

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per RandBall:

Having written about and talked about several frustrating and/or negative moments in the ongoing battle between Sinclair and multiple carriers — including but not limited to declining Twins television ratings and fans frustrated because they can't watch games — I am relieved to at least bring you all a report that hints at ... good news.

Could it be?

Well, perhaps. Let's not get too excited yet. But John Ourand, who covers the business of sports and media about as well as anyone, wrote Monday that there appears to be some movement in key negotiations between Sinclair and Dish (subscription required).

To back up for a moment: Sinclair, which owns 21 regional sports networks including Bally Sports North (formerly Fox Sports North), has been at an impasse with several carriers. Those RSNs were dropped from Dish, a satellite provider with 8.7 million customers, in 2019 and have not returned. They have also been dropped from several streaming carriers — most notably YouTube TV and Hulu after the 2020 MLB season.

Virtually every Twins, Wild and Wolves game is on BSN, as well as some United and Lynx games, so fans of those teams who have those satellite/streaming providers have been unable to watch their favorite teams for months (and in the case of Dish years).

But as I talked about on Tuesday's Daily Delivery podcast, Ourand reports that negotiations between Sinclair and Dish over local channels could be a signal that a deal with RSNs is also in the offing.

www.startribune.com

Is there good news on the horizon for fans trying to watch Bally Sports North?

After months of pessimistic reports on the impasse between Sinclair and several carriers, a report suggests there could be an agreement on the way with Dish Network — one that could pave the way for other carriers to start once again carrying regional sports networks.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 






howeda7 said:
Sinclaire has to budge on this or every team is going to non-renew with them as soon as their contract is up.
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What seasons are the Twins, Loons, Wild, and Wolves locked up through with ____ North channel?
 






This is bs. Sinclair needs to die.
 

howeda7 said:
Twins have like 2 years left. Not sure about the others.
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Thinking about this a bit:

Fox Sports/Bally's North offers the Twins $X for the rights to broadcast their games. The Twins get that money, regardless of viewership. They don't have to pay for or own any broadcast technology or talent.

The issue has always been the sheer number of games, in these other leagues. Sure, picking off a few great (likely higher viewership games) is one thing ... but what about all the rest of them? Who is going to step up and carry -- and produce at the level of quality we're used to -- all those other games?

Maybe you think the Twins should start their own channel, and do it themselves? But will they actually make any money on that? Now they (or really, their new channel, like a YES channel for the Twins) are taking on all those costs and risks.


Seems like if there were other options, they'd have been done by now? Either some other channel willing to pay for, produce, and broadcast the games, or the Twins doing it themselves. But assuming the numbers have just never worked, or we'd have that by now.
 

MplsGopher said:
Thinking about this a bit:

Fox Sports/Bally's North offers the Twins $X for the rights to broadcast their games. The Twins get that money, regardless of viewership. They don't have to pay for or own any broadcast technology or talent.

The issue has always been the sheer number of games, in these other leagues. Sure, picking off a few great (likely higher viewership games) is one thing ... but what about all the rest of them? Who is going to step up and carry -- and produce at the level of quality we're used to -- all those other games?

Maybe you think the Twins should start their own channel, and do it themselves? But will they actually make any money on that? Now they (or really, their new channel, like a YES channel for the Twins) are taking on all those costs and risks.


Seems like if there were other options, they'd have been done by now? Either some other channel willing to pay for, produce, and broadcast the games, or the Twins doing it themselves. But assuming the numbers have just never worked, or we'd have that by now.
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The Twins did start their own network in 2003. It failed because it didn't get distribution. The production of the games was not the issue. If Bally is going to drive everyone to their app to watch, the Twins might as well launch their own app and cut out the middle man.
 

howeda7 said:
The Twins did start their own network in 2003. It failed because it didn't get distribution. The production of the games was not the issue. If Bally is going to drive everyone to their app to watch, the Twins might as well launch their own app and cut out the middle man.
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But practically, what's it to the Twins in terms of bottom line dollars and overhead cost/pain in terms of running a digital, internet streaming app with high quality feeds? (maybe they can just pay MLB to do it, I don't know)

Bally's is making a long term investment, hoping it can get people to warm up to the idea of gambling on the game they're watching via services integrated into the broadcast. It's not going to happen overnight. So they might be willing to keep shelling out for the content, even if the ratings suck because of distribution. For the first few years?

So in that scenario, the Twins really don't have to care about TV viewership. They get paid the same either way, by Bally's. It's not like they get paid more if more people watch. If anything, it potentially drives up in-person ticket sales a bit by not having the games easily on TV.
 



MplsGopher said:
But practically, what's it to the Twins in terms of bottom line dollars and overhead cost/pain in terms of running a digital, internet streaming app with high quality feeds? (maybe they can just pay MLB to do it, I don't know)

Bally's is making a long term investment, hoping it can get people to warm up to the idea of gambling on the game they're watching via services integrated into the broadcast. It's not going to happen overnight. So they might be willing to keep shelling out for the content, even if the ratings suck because of distribution. For the first few years?

So in that scenario, the Twins really don't have to care about TV viewership. They get paid the same either way, by Bally's. It's not like they get paid more if more people watch. If anything, it potentially drives up in-person ticket sales a bit by not having the games easily on TV.
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Low viewership does not lead to more ticket sales over any long period of time. The opposite is true. You can't grow or even maintain your fan base if no one can watch the games and baseball is a dying sport as it is.

Frankly, no matter who they do their next rights deal with, the Twins need to put some of their games back on over-the-air TV. Last I read, at least 30% of households in the Minneapolis market had no cable/satellite or regular streaming service (YouTube/Hulu).
 

howeda7 said:
Low viewership does not lead to more ticket sales over any long period of time. The opposite is true. You can't grow or even maintain your fan base if no one can watch the games and baseball is a dying sport as it is.

Frankly, no matter who they do their next rights deal with, the Twins need to put some of their games back on over-the-air TV. Last I read, at least 30% of households in the Minneapolis market had no cable/satellite or regular streaming service (YouTube/Hulu).
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The thing baseball has is great weather and great stadiums (in a lot of markets, including of course our's). I know lots of people who will go to a game a year just for the experience of sitting outdoors on a beautiful evening and taking it in. Regardless if they don't follow the Twins in the slightest.

Sure, long term, agree with you. I was mainly talking about the very short term, with Bally's North. Say BN offers the Twins a 5 year extension at the current rate or slightly increased with inflation. I don't see why the Twins wouldn't re-up, given my argument that they "don't have to care about viewership" in the short term.

Let's see what happens.
 

As far as I know, Sinclair is still supposedly working on offering BSN as a stand-along streaming service. The big unanswered question is the cost. for $10 or $15 a month, I think it would be pretty successful.

the other issue is that people who get their TV from You Tube TV or Hulu live are learning to live without the Twins on TV. by playing hardball with providers, Sinclair may be hurting the market for its product.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
As far as I know, Sinclair is still supposedly working on offering BSN as a stand-along streaming service. The big unanswered question is the cost. for $10 or $15 a month, I think it would be pretty successful.

the other issue is that people who get their TV from You Tube TV or Hulu live are learning to live without the Twins on TV. by playing hardball with providers, Sinclair may be hurting the market for its product.
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The cost they floated to investors was $23/month. For one channel. Not many are going to go for that.
 

howeda7 said:
The cost they floated to investors was $23/month. For one channel. Not many are going to go for that.
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Well, it's to watch Twins, Loons, Wild, Wolves games, is how you have to look at it. That's what you're paying for.

$276/yr to get access to the those games. For me, it's a no, but I could see it a yes for others.
 

howeda7 said:
The Twins did start their own network in 2003. It failed because it didn't get distribution. The production of the games was not the issue. If Bally is going to drive everyone to their app to watch, the Twins might as well launch their own app and cut out the middle man.
Click to expand...
Victory Sports One was a cable and satellite television regional sports network owned by the Minnesota Twins baseball team. It was first conceived in 2001[2][3] and launched on October 31, 2003.[4] Victory Sports was the exclusive cable TV home of Twins games for the first month of the 2004 season; in addition, it was planned to have coverage of various Minnesota college and high school games along with outdoors programming, including former Twin Kent Hrbek's popular program. The channel also simulcast ESPNEWS.[5]

The Twins opted to take their local broadcast rights in-house after the 2003 season, ending a 15-year partnership with MSC/FSN North. The model for the plan was the success of the New York Yankees' YES Network.[3]

Victory Sports was slated to air 105 Twins games, with the other 57 airing on KSTC-TV. However, it was unable to obtain carriage from the primary cable television providers in the Twin Cities, the rest of the state of Minnesota, and the Dakotas, or from DirecTV or Dish Network. These providers balked at the $2.20-per-subscriber price that the Pohlads were demanding, which they felt was too much for a regional sports network. The cable companies were only willing to air it on a digital tier, but the Pohlads insisted that it air on basic cable.[5] It did, however, sign contracts with several smaller providers.[6][7] By April 2004, so few providers had signed on with the network that it was apparent it would never be viable. After a month in which only a tiny percentage of Twins fans could watch games locally, Victory Sports One signed off on May 8. The Twins quickly re-signed with FSN North to placate viewers inconvenienced by the change, and were able to obtain a significant increase in cable revenue over their previous contract with FSN North.[8] Kent Hrbek Outdoors quickly found a new home on KMSP-TV.
 


saintpaulguy said:
they used to show ads for Victory at the Metrodome, and the whole crowd would boo.
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Gopher basketball was also stuck there for one season.

If they'd just gone to Dish Network and cut a deal, I think DirecTV and many of the cable companies would have caved. Most people had no alternative to switch to. And they should have gotten the Wolves on board as well but couldn't agree on the split.
 

There was Twin Star before that, which was a Twins North Star package. Back them both had a large number of over the air games, Twin Star showed the games not on ch 9. It was over the air too, on Ch 23, which was scrambled at the time, bypassing the cable company. The other hours of the day it was called Spectrum, and showed moviessome of them Skinemax quality. Your descrambler box allowed you movies, sports, or both depending on your subscription. They were notoriously easily to build if you had a background in electronics.
 

saintpaulguy said:
There was Twin Star before that, which was a Twins North Star package. Back them both had a large number of over the air games, Twin Star showed the games not on ch 9. It was over the air too, on Ch 23, which was scrambled at the time, bypassing the cable company. The other hours of the day it was called Spectrum, and showed moviessome of them Skinemax quality. Your descrambler box allowed you movies, sports, or both depending on your subscription. They were notoriously easily to build if you had a background in electronics.
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Interesting. That was before my time I guess. I didn't even know they could "scramble" OTA signals.
 

The core cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul,,were very late to the cable game. TVQ was a transmitter on the IDS center that broadcast HBO over the air to customers with a small dish antenna. It was scrambled, but easily pirated.
if you want to geek out, here are the details
en.wikipedia.org

Spectrum (TV channel) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 

Point being, the Twins have twice tried to start their own service.
 

howeda7 said:
The cost they floated to investors was $23/month. For one channel. Not many are going to go for that.
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It wouldn’t be so bad if they allowed multiple log ins at the same time. So you could split the cost with someone.
 


I was going to broadcasting school in the Twin Cities in 1987 and stayed with a buddy of mine in St. Paul. he had some kind of service (maybe Spectrum) that carried Twins Games, but I don't think it was over-the-air.
 

howeda7 said:
Low viewership does not lead to more ticket sales over any long period of time. The opposite is true. You can't grow or even maintain your fan base if no one can watch the games and baseball is a dying sport as it is.

Frankly, no matter who they do their next rights deal with, the Twins need to put some of their games back on over-the-air TV. Last I read, at least 30% of households in the Minneapolis market had no cable/satellite or regular streaming service (YouTube/Hulu).
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I've been chapped about this since they stopped having any games on OTA. For as long as I can remember up until what, like 2010ish? the Sunday games were on a local OTA. Obviously, if there's money to be had, the Twins are going to take it. I get it. But considering how much money the taxpayers gave them to build a stadium, I am of the belief that taking a few bucks less to sell the Sunday games to a local OTA channel is a reasonable olive branch to John Q. Taxpayer. And frankly, with baseball popularity the way it is going, getting more games of theirs on TV that everybody can watch seems like a long-term investment worth taking.
 

forever a gopher said:
I've been chapped about this since they stopped having any games on OTA. For as long as I can remember up until what, like 2010ish? the Sunday games were on a local OTA. Obviously, if there's money to be had, the Twins are going to take it. I get it. But considering how much money the taxpayers gave them to build a stadium, I am of the belief that taking a few bucks less to sell the Sunday games to a local OTA channel is a reasonable olive branch to John Q. Taxpayer. And frankly, with baseball popularity the way it is going, getting more games of theirs on TV that everybody can watch seems like a long-term investment worth taking.
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Sinclaire owns channel 23. I seriously doubt they would object to the Sunday games being shown there, even if they were also on BSN.

I remember seeing ratings for one of their OTA games in 2006 against the Yankees and it got like a 20 rating. (I think it might have been the game of Blyleven's infamous cussing incident.) Nothing outside of the Vikings pulls that kind of #'s and they could never get that on cable.
 

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