The Minnesota Twins are off to one of their best starts in years, but the buzz around Minnesota is at a minimum because no one has seen the team on TV.
The Twins and their Victory Sports Channel are at an impasse with six different cable networks over the cost.
Cable networks say that they don't think their customers should have to pay the extra $2.25 per month that Victory Sports Channel would cost.
However, our view is that many people now send $50 per month to the cable companies for a whole plethora of channels they don't want. Many would gladly trade to get Victory. In fact, locally the fees just went up more than $2.25 per month. It's beyond being uninteresting; many of these channels offer fare that glorifies behavior many families don't want in their homes. However, because the cable networks insist on all or nothing packaging (except for a few premium channels like HBO), one still pays for them, even if they are blocked.
Then customers want the Twins and Gopher men's basketball, wholesome family entertainment, and they can't get them..
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We recognize that the $2.25 per customer per month amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cable companies, but we also think the cable companies need to think twice.
It wasn't too long ago that Congress passed a law forcing the NFL to televise all home sell-outs. The same kind of thing could happen to the cable companies if they don't get this settled.
