Major League Baseball's Minnesota Twins are reducing their payroll and exploring alternative local TV options following the expiration of the team's agreement with bankrupt regional sports network operator Diamond Sports Group.
Speaking at a league-wide general managers meeting earlier this week, Twins GM Derek Falvey said he doesn't expect the team to match the all-time club-high $156 million collective player payroll it carried in the recently completed 2023 MLB season.
Meanwhile, in a bankruptcy court filing Wednesday, Diamond confirmed that a contract that paid the Twins a reported $54.8 million this past season to appear on Bally Sports North has in fact expired. And the former Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary, which is renegotiating deals with all of the teams in the Bally Sports umbrella, said nothing about renewing its Twins agreement.
A source familiar with Diamond's Chapter 11 restructuring told Next TV earlier this week that Diamond only plans to move forward next MLB season with 10 of the 12 teams that were on Bally Sports channels as of the end of the 2024 campaign. So there's another dissonant MLB club out there besides the Twins.
Last week, the Twins said it was exploring alternative local TV options. This coincides with the retirement of the team's play-by-play caller for the past 40 seasons, Dick Bremer.
Last season, the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks were cast out of the Bally Sports ecosystem amid Diamond's restructuring. Both teams were “backstopped” by MLB’s other clubs to the tune of 80 cents for every dollar they couldn't make up with their alternative local broadcast schemes.
There is no backstopping plan for the Twins, Padres and Diamondbacks next season, however.
Diamond has struggled to come up with a viable restructuring plan since entering bankruptcy in March with plans to solve for $8 billion of debt.
Earlier this week, the company announced a deal with the NBA that will keep 15 of the league’s teams on Bally Sports channels through the 2023-24 season, before cutting them loose from their contracts.
Diamond also carved out a short-term deal with Comcast and is working on something similar with the NHL as it attempts to buy some time and avoid liquidation.
"I'm pretty sure you can expect Ballys to carry on and find a buyer or buyers, and maybe even continue on in some fashion," a source close to Diamond's negotiations told Next TV on Monday.
