Comments on: So about that radio thing…

By: Jim Crikket

Jim Crikket — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 16:00:24 +0000

James, I don’t doubt Hubbard’s desire. I was just assuming (dangerous, I know) that any new deal with 1500 would take in to account the different circumstances the Twins are in today vs a couple of years ago when the current deal was extended. Last time, the Twins were perennial Division contenders and now they’d be coming off a couple of lousy seasons in a row. I would think that would affect ratings and that ratings might preclude the Twins from getting such a favorable deal this time around. Maybe not, though. I’m far from a media expert.

It’s certainly going to be interesting to see what happens with games broadcast on one channel and the ancillary programming on another.

By: James

James — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 11:17:31 +0000

JC, I think you underestimate Hubbard here. He wanted to compete with KFAN, so he switched the all news yakker of a station that was 1500 and changed it to all sports (part of that deal was to have Mike n Mike in the morning). The Twins are a good property for that, especially if the team is winning. The Hubbards wanted the Twins so bade that he wrote a check to the Twins for a million bucks per year AND the Twins got to keep all revenue from advertising during the game (Treasure Island Im sure paid big bucks to have their name stamped on the Twins Radio Network)

ESPN 1500 will be fine. They have a nice stable of personalities (although I cant stand Joe Sucherray (sp?) and their web presence is pretty damned good: Phil Mackey me be an ass, but he pumps out a lot of quality content, 1500 doesnt carry the Vikings but Tom Pellissaro is the best writer in town and Judd Zulgad is no slouch. Right now, 1500 carries some Gophers sports (basketball and hockey(?)) but they’ll be in the mix when all the sports contract come up for renewal in a few years.

By: Jim Crikket

Jim Crikket — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 22:59:09 +0000

Obviously teams don’t “lose money” by owning their own broadcast rights or the Yankees wouldn’t have the YES Network broadcasting their games. Team owners like the Pohlads and Steinbrenners don’t care where their profits come from, whether it’s their baseball team or their media companies. In fact, there may be good reasons for preferring to see the profits come from their non-baseball companies.

Beyond that, I’ll just paste here the same thoughts I posted in the TwinsDaily thread on the subject:

I see a couple of possibilities at work here.

Certainly, this could be an indicator that Twins ownership is dipping their toes back in the waters of owning/controlling their own media distribution channel. It didn’t work for them the first time with TV, but it certainly has worked for other teams since then. If they can make the radio thing work, maybe by the next time their TV rights are up for bid, they’ll be in a position to at least partner with a distributor and give FSN some competition for those rights.

Another… and perhaps, unfortunately, more likely… scenario is that after two consecutive very poor seasons, they realized the money they might be able to command from 1500 or anyone else for their radio rights was tanking along with the Twins’ W-L record and now might be the time to see if they can use Twins programming to at least make the radio station profitable.

By: Eric Pleiss

Eric Pleiss — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 22:04:01 +0000

Babs,
I think, unless the Pohlads are planning to pay themselves to broadcast Twins games (which I suppose they could), that the Twins lose the revenue stream that 1500 ESPN was previously paying them.
I honestly have no idea why they’d want to give that value away, but if it increases the value and profitability of the KTWN station a great amount than what they were being paid for broadcast rights, then Pohlads make more money, even if the Twins themselves make less.
But I don’t really know how it will work.