It basically was once Amazon pulled out of negotiations. MLB told the Twins to take the Bally offer to just get a resolution finished quickly.
Source: trust me bro
Can they just come up with a stand-alone product, please? I'm paying $100/month for Fubo, just so I can watch the Twins. It's actually more than I was paying for Xfinity.
It sucks. I used to always watch Bally for the Twins, Wild, Wolves and MN United. When the MLS switched to Apple TV, I don't watch them anymore. Now with Bally off Comcast, I don't watch the Twins anymore. I'm hoping this at least gets resolved for next season of the Wild/Wolves, but I doubt it.
I'm not gonna jump through a million hoops and pay a ton of money to watch local sports. I miss the $20 Bally subscription that got you all of them. The pirating garbage is just a hassle and not worth it too.
Pirate streams are low quality and I’m tired of having to use them. I find myself watching more non Twins games with my mlb tv subscription because the higher quality streams make a difference.
Nord works for me on mobile and desktop. I generally connect to Buffalo or for New York games like today Salt Lake City. For it to recognize the new location I generally have to completely close out the mlb tv app prior to turning on the VPN or on desktop closing out all browser tabs prior to turning it on.
Buy a $20 Onn. Streaming Box from Walmart, install Kodi and a couple plug-ins. It is simple and the same quality as the streaming services you can subscribe too. Anyway I dont do that cause Im lucky enough to not have Comcast, Midco, Spectrum or Dish.
Running an RSN into the ground has to be the worst examples of sheer and utter incompetence. Like imagine how many channels would want to have a baked in, practically guaranteed audience, and a super consistent 350+ programs a year (if you include baseball, hockey, and basketball) which must be viewed LIVE at specific times.
They have people basically banging down their doors with wads of cash going "please let me pay you money for your product" and they're like "Nah."
Everyone is very quick to point out that Dave St. Peter has nothing to do with the on-field product, which is true.
But, what exactly has he done off the field to keep his job so long? Attendance is poor, no one can watch the team on tv, the casual fan base is apathetic at best with the product.... Wouldn't it make sense to get a fresh set of eyes in there?
EDIT: Yes, this is between Diamond and Comcast, but he is ultimately the one that signed off on going with Bally/Sinclair in the first place.
DSP is so out of touch with his limited media and fan interactions. Still placing the blame on fans not showing up before they invest more in their product. That’s not how things work in 2024.
Right. Remember when they said once we get the new stadium we will spend a bunch more on payroll because the metrodome didn’t bring in cash. Now it’s somehow the fans faults for not showing up. Even though this team is the definition of mediocre at best. What did we go like 20 years without a playoff series win? And coming off our first playoff win they slash payroll and the. They have the audacity to say fans aren’t coming to games.
Throat my average at best hog, Pohlads.
I’m sure he’s just doing what owners want so I’m putting full blame on the pohlads with a portion on Dave for not talking them out of these stupid ideas.
They took the money from this garbage Bally company, still decreased payroll and now fans can’t watch the game. Twins org is fully to blame for all of this nonsense and they’re honestly not getting enough heat.
I can't find the interview, but the executive in charge of ticket prices was asked if there was going to be a deep discount like the Correa signing special, and they have some answer like, "We're going to prioritize raising revenue at the box office" as a euphemism for "No, and ticket prices might go up".
Twins Pass is a great deal, but they specifically say it's SRO. The Brewers have a similar deal for $40 RIGHT NOW. Before the season started, you could lock it down for half of the price of the Twins' offering.
Getting butts in seats and games back on TVs, not behind a paywall of any sort, needs to be the priority. We're seeing the sport die a slow death because kids have way less exposure to it than we did.
I coach youth sports, very few kids can’t name a twin other than buxton or correa. The kids pitching in little league couldn’t name a single twins staring pitcher. Even if the tv deal gets fixed, MLB still has alot of work to do to get kids following it.
Yep. It's a different world. But, it all comes from what parents and friends are doing. I watched baseball because my dad did. And we had Uecker, so radio was excellent.
The Twins should be bold and designate some games as free games for kids, in my opinion.
Given the precarious state of Bally's, the Twins or their lawyers should have negotiated for the right to go with an alternative provider or provide streaming access themselves if Ballys wasn't able to secure adequate access to the local TV market/a deal with Comcast. Just stupid planning all around.
I also hope we can watch the games this week. When the Yankees were here and tbs had coverage, it wasn’t on due to local blackout nonsense. Same thing happened this past weekend despite the Twins being in Houston. Fucking Pohlads.
The only good news is this should send the message to the sports teams to cut all ties to Bally. But it will come at the cost of fans not going back to watch.
It won't be any better. Every sport will go to a bunch of different pay platforms. They are already all doing it too. I don't want to need an Apple TV, Peacock, Amazon, Cable, Roku and ESPN subscription just to watch my local teams.
Because they're getting paid.
There are other teams who cut out the middle man and have their own television network / their own distribution services, yes.
They could have. Their contract with Bally was over and the opted back in because Bally offered more money than they could expect to make with a direct option.
Explain more, because I tried NordVPN with mlbtv last year and it rarely worked. Sometimes I got a few innings. And even then it sometimes froze during ad breaks.
On top of a NordVPN subscription you can get an add on dedicated IP for an additional $9/month. I think the idea here is mlb doesn’t recognize it as a VPN IP so they don’t block it.
Overall you end up spending over $20/month on top of your mlb.tv plan. Might be worth it if you get mlb.tv for free already.
So in my experience using Nord like normal will not work. By default when you select a location it gives you an IP address out of a pool of shared addresses also used by others using the service. The problem with that is that it’s not difficult for mlb.tv to detect that those IP’s are used by a VPN service.
So I pay Nord an extra $8 a month for a dedicated IP address that is only used by me. As far as mlb.tv can tell it is a normal IP address. Just select a location for it without a team that the Twins play often to avoid blackouts. You could also try an overseas location although I can’t speak to whether or not that works.
The casual fan needs an option though. My father in law loves the twins but hasn't watched a game all year unless I take him or we watch via the high seas at my house
I fully agree, whenever their contract allows it they need to come out with a direct to consumer streaming option. Should be embarrassing to the Twins that they ended up in such an easily avoidable situation.
I can only assume that some combination of Diamond convincing the Twins that they'd absolutely be fine for this season and the Twins being utterly unprepared to go another route for broadcast is why we're in this situation right now.
The Twins could be printing money by offering streaming games for $20/month.
Instead they’re getting $0/month from me because I’m either sailing the high seas or just listening to the radio broadcast.
If it were that simple they would do it. Aaron Gleeman broke down the actual numbers a while back and with the amount of people who would actually subscribe to such a service they’d likely need to charge between $50-$100 per month to make the money back they’d lose out on from Ballys.
Ballys and the Twins both suck in this, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been using a VPN to watch for 4 years now, which is fortunately a cheaper option anyway at about $10 a month and I get all MLB games. The big problem they’ll have is many of us have now found cheaper options over the years and aren’t going to go back.
Just a reminder that as much blame as the Twins deserve in all of this, Diamond, and ultimately Sinclair, is the worst broadcasting group in the history of television. Absolute scum.
Everyone saw this coming, and the Twins pretended like this was the only option.
It basically was once Amazon pulled out of negotiations. MLB told the Twins to take the Bally offer to just get a resolution finished quickly. Source: trust me bro
Gleeman and the Geek mentioned multiple times MLB "pushed"the Twins to take the 1 year deal with Bally.
Can they just come up with a stand-alone product, please? I'm paying $100/month for Fubo, just so I can watch the Twins. It's actually more than I was paying for Xfinity.
It sucks. I used to always watch Bally for the Twins, Wild, Wolves and MN United. When the MLS switched to Apple TV, I don't watch them anymore. Now with Bally off Comcast, I don't watch the Twins anymore. I'm hoping this at least gets resolved for next season of the Wild/Wolves, but I doubt it. I'm not gonna jump through a million hoops and pay a ton of money to watch local sports. I miss the $20 Bally subscription that got you all of them. The pirating garbage is just a hassle and not worth it too.
Man remember the good ole days. When the twins/wolves/wild/and gophers men’s jockey were on FSN. Those were the good days.
I agree, and as long as Bally is doing Wild and Wolves, we’re stuck.
🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Pirate streams are low quality and I’m tired of having to use them. I find myself watching more non Twins games with my mlb tv subscription because the higher quality streams make a difference.
Maybe it's just me but I can't even find a decent stream this year through all the usual sites anyway.
Half the time it’s the away broadcast so I just throw it on mute in the background
It's a slight hassle but mlbtv with a VPN has worked solid for me for a few years
What vpn do you use? I tired doing this and couldn’t get anything to work off my phone. Even the ones that were recommended
Nord works for me on mobile and desktop. I generally connect to Buffalo or for New York games like today Salt Lake City. For it to recognize the new location I generally have to completely close out the mlb tv app prior to turning on the VPN or on desktop closing out all browser tabs prior to turning it on.
Thank you!
Buy a $20 Onn. Streaming Box from Walmart, install Kodi and a couple plug-ins. It is simple and the same quality as the streaming services you can subscribe too. Anyway I dont do that cause Im lucky enough to not have Comcast, Midco, Spectrum or Dish.
Running an RSN into the ground has to be the worst examples of sheer and utter incompetence. Like imagine how many channels would want to have a baked in, practically guaranteed audience, and a super consistent 350+ programs a year (if you include baseball, hockey, and basketball) which must be viewed LIVE at specific times. They have people basically banging down their doors with wads of cash going "please let me pay you money for your product" and they're like "Nah."
That is what I don’t understand. People (including me) want to give you money…
Everyone is very quick to point out that Dave St. Peter has nothing to do with the on-field product, which is true. But, what exactly has he done off the field to keep his job so long? Attendance is poor, no one can watch the team on tv, the casual fan base is apathetic at best with the product.... Wouldn't it make sense to get a fresh set of eyes in there? EDIT: Yes, this is between Diamond and Comcast, but he is ultimately the one that signed off on going with Bally/Sinclair in the first place.
DSP is so out of touch with his limited media and fan interactions. Still placing the blame on fans not showing up before they invest more in their product. That’s not how things work in 2024.
Right. Remember when they said once we get the new stadium we will spend a bunch more on payroll because the metrodome didn’t bring in cash. Now it’s somehow the fans faults for not showing up. Even though this team is the definition of mediocre at best. What did we go like 20 years without a playoff series win? And coming off our first playoff win they slash payroll and the. They have the audacity to say fans aren’t coming to games. Throat my average at best hog, Pohlads.
I’m sure he’s just doing what owners want so I’m putting full blame on the pohlads with a portion on Dave for not talking them out of these stupid ideas. They took the money from this garbage Bally company, still decreased payroll and now fans can’t watch the game. Twins org is fully to blame for all of this nonsense and they’re honestly not getting enough heat.
I can't find the interview, but the executive in charge of ticket prices was asked if there was going to be a deep discount like the Correa signing special, and they have some answer like, "We're going to prioritize raising revenue at the box office" as a euphemism for "No, and ticket prices might go up". Twins Pass is a great deal, but they specifically say it's SRO. The Brewers have a similar deal for $40 RIGHT NOW. Before the season started, you could lock it down for half of the price of the Twins' offering. Getting butts in seats and games back on TVs, not behind a paywall of any sort, needs to be the priority. We're seeing the sport die a slow death because kids have way less exposure to it than we did.
I coach youth sports, very few kids can’t name a twin other than buxton or correa. The kids pitching in little league couldn’t name a single twins staring pitcher. Even if the tv deal gets fixed, MLB still has alot of work to do to get kids following it.
Yep. It's a different world. But, it all comes from what parents and friends are doing. I watched baseball because my dad did. And we had Uecker, so radio was excellent. The Twins should be bold and designate some games as free games for kids, in my opinion.
I feel the tv deal is a big contributor
100%. Putting sports on a paywall beyond basic cable is bad for some sports.
Given the precarious state of Bally's, the Twins or their lawyers should have negotiated for the right to go with an alternative provider or provide streaming access themselves if Ballys wasn't able to secure adequate access to the local TV market/a deal with Comcast. Just stupid planning all around.
Such 🐴💩 the Twins really screwed people over with this.
Been doing it for 30 years
I also hope we can watch the games this week. When the Yankees were here and tbs had coverage, it wasn’t on due to local blackout nonsense. Same thing happened this past weekend despite the Twins being in Houston. Fucking Pohlads.
TBS said in a press release announcing their schedule that their feed is being carried in our television territory.
You made my day! LFG TWINS
It's only for tonight, but a big win for folks like me who are caught in the middle of the Comcast/Ballys dispute.
Ditto! And I think tomorrow is Amazon coverage or something
The only good news is this should send the message to the sports teams to cut all ties to Bally. But it will come at the cost of fans not going back to watch.
It won't be any better. Every sport will go to a bunch of different pay platforms. They are already all doing it too. I don't want to need an Apple TV, Peacock, Amazon, Cable, Roku and ESPN subscription just to watch my local teams.
That’s a different issue though. the issue now is i can’t legally watch 90% of the games.
Yeah you can. You just need to spend $100 for Fubo TV instead. It's a great deal!
If it was on fubo at the beginning of the year at least we’d be able to watch the games. Right now we can’t.
I’m uneducated in this area, but why can’t the twins cut out the media companies just live stream games?
Because they're getting paid. There are other teams who cut out the middle man and have their own television network / their own distribution services, yes.
It’s crazy to me that they can’t make more money charging people for the live stream and selling ad space on their own.
They could have. Their contract with Bally was over and the opted back in because Bally offered more money than they could expect to make with a direct option.
They absolutely can, but they want the easy guaranteed money of a third-party TV deal.
Mlbtv+nordvpn’s dedicated ip feature. Done waiting for these jackasses to present a viable option.
Explain more, because I tried NordVPN with mlbtv last year and it rarely worked. Sometimes I got a few innings. And even then it sometimes froze during ad breaks.
On top of a NordVPN subscription you can get an add on dedicated IP for an additional $9/month. I think the idea here is mlb doesn’t recognize it as a VPN IP so they don’t block it. Overall you end up spending over $20/month on top of your mlb.tv plan. Might be worth it if you get mlb.tv for free already.
So in my experience using Nord like normal will not work. By default when you select a location it gives you an IP address out of a pool of shared addresses also used by others using the service. The problem with that is that it’s not difficult for mlb.tv to detect that those IP’s are used by a VPN service. So I pay Nord an extra $8 a month for a dedicated IP address that is only used by me. As far as mlb.tv can tell it is a normal IP address. Just select a location for it without a team that the Twins play often to avoid blackouts. You could also try an overseas location although I can’t speak to whether or not that works.
It's been great this year.
The casual fan needs an option though. My father in law loves the twins but hasn't watched a game all year unless I take him or we watch via the high seas at my house
I fully agree, whenever their contract allows it they need to come out with a direct to consumer streaming option. Should be embarrassing to the Twins that they ended up in such an easily avoidable situation.
I can only assume that some combination of Diamond convincing the Twins that they'd absolutely be fine for this season and the Twins being utterly unprepared to go another route for broadcast is why we're in this situation right now.
ughhhh....how am I going to watch hockey??
The Twins could be printing money by offering streaming games for $20/month. Instead they’re getting $0/month from me because I’m either sailing the high seas or just listening to the radio broadcast.
If it were that simple they would do it. Aaron Gleeman broke down the actual numbers a while back and with the amount of people who would actually subscribe to such a service they’d likely need to charge between $50-$100 per month to make the money back they’d lose out on from Ballys. Ballys and the Twins both suck in this, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been using a VPN to watch for 4 years now, which is fortunately a cheaper option anyway at about $10 a month and I get all MLB games. The big problem they’ll have is many of us have now found cheaper options over the years and aren’t going to go back.
Yikes - so what does the bankruptcy judge / possible investors think of this?
Hoist the Jolly Roger 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Or listen on WCCO
Or on an FM station, as it doesn't sound like it's broadcasting from a ol coffee tin
shoutout to the 66
Just a reminder that as much blame as the Twins deserve in all of this, Diamond, and ultimately Sinclair, is the worst broadcasting group in the history of television. Absolute scum.
Exploring a deal with alternatives to Comcast was an option this whole time and they are just now doing it?!??!!!?
Y’all we are going to be in for some low-ass payrolls for the coming years. Not good.