Timberwolves and Wild TV Broadcasts in Limbo Due to More RSN Distress

The (20-10-5) Minnesota Wild and (19-10) Minnesota Timberwolves are two of the hotter teams in their respective sports for more than a month now, after both local market major professional teams got off to slow starts in 2025-26.

And for a third of their regular seasons, watching Wolves and Wild games locally has been easier than ever, assuming you are willing to pay for it — either through the FanDuel Sports Network App or one of a select-few cable/satellite companies that still carry the channel.

Minnesota Timberwolves and Wild games in danger of going off-TV…?

But that may not be the case much longer. According to a recent report at Sports Business Journal, Main Street Sports — the parent company of FanDuel Regional Sports Network channels — is on the verge of collapse, after Main Street Sports missed a payment to the MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals over the weekend.

In fact, the only way to keep FanDuel Sports Network from halting operations at the end of the NHL and NBA seasons and Main Street Sports from subsequently dissolving as a company — is to finish a sale that is in the works with DAZN.

Main Street Sports Group has missed a December payment to the St. Louis Cardinals as it continues to pursue a last-ditch sale to DAZN, and sources told SBJ late Saturday that if the DAZN purchase does not close by January, Main Street will wind down and dissolve its business at the end of this year’s NBA and NHL regular seasons.

Sports Business Journal

DAZN is a digital media platform that was founded in 2015, and one that claims to broadcast live and/or on-demand sports in over 200 countries, so a move like this makes sense.

Waiting on potential deal between Main Street Sports and DAZN

Of course, negotiations involving billions of dollars worth of professional sports TV licensing contracts is far from simple. And according to Sports Business Journal, Main Street Sports is struggling to meet.

If the deal falls through, Main Street Sports has promised to finish out the NBA and NHL seasons, but teams would be on their own (with help from their respective leagues) in figuring out how to move forward into the future with their TV broadcast and streaming rights. Bankruptcy is not an option this time around.

If the deal with DAZN falls through, sources said Main Street intends to end its business in coordination with the NBA and NHL with only minimal disruption to local game broadcasts — meaning they apparently intend to make their final rights fee payments. Those same sources said Main Street would not file for bankruptcy again, after emerging from a previous Chapter 11 one calendar year ago.

The first domino is the potential Main Street sale to DAZN, which sources said is in limbo because Main Street has not been able to meet all of DAZN’s conditions. Sources close to Main Street, meanwhile, were steadfast that a Main Street-DAZN route would be the superior economic model for teams…

Sports Business Journal

Related: MN Timberwolves Credit Chris Finch Meltdown for Huge Victory

As of now, all thirteen NBA teams and all eight NHL teams have received all scheduled payments from Main Street Sports. The MLB, however, is telling its nine teams under the FanDuel Sports Network umbrella that they should prepare to get stiffed by Main Street Sports this month, just like the Cards did.

If FDSN channels were to shutter earlier than expected, due to mounting financial problems, it’s possible Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Wild games could be affected still this season.

How does this affect MN Timberwolves and MN Wild fans?

If that happens, both leagues would be forced to step in and help each individual organization make their games available, both via stream and standard television. Again, Main Street Sports says they plan to finish out both the NBA and NHL seasons, even if the deal with DAZN falls through.

But when big companies are bleeding money like Main Street Sports clearly is… nothing is guaranteed and promises can mean little. At the very least, this is a situation that both Wild and Wolves fans should watch very closely.

Multiple sources privy to the conference call said the NBA informed their teams that MLB’s Cardinals had not received this month’s rights fee payment for the upcoming season and put all 13 franchises on alert that their own payments in January and beyond — totaling a reported $180M this season — might not arrive, as well.

“The message to [the NBA] teams was, for now, no big change, but refine your contingency plans, continue discussions with everybody, things will happen over the next few weeks, couple months and let the league know if you hear anything,” said one source.

Sports Business Journal

Also of note from the report out of Sports Business Journal, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ contract with Main Street Sports calls for FDSN’s parent company to pay $24 million per season to the organization in order to broadcast and stream games live Wolves games.

Just like the Minnesota Twins lost $60 million per season from their previous deals with FanDuel Sports Network, when they split after the 2024 season, that $24 million in recurring yearly revenue for the Wolves would fall off their balance sheet in 2026-27.

In the short-term, that is a huge problem. At the same time, Main Street Sports closing its doors would give the NBA, NHL and MLB back exclusive TV/streaming rights for the 30 teams now in jeopardy of losing their broadcast partner.

Leagues want to cash in on future of sports viewing

What NBA, NHL and MLB want to eventually do is aggregate these broadcasting rights and put them up for auction so the streaming giants of the world (Apple, Amazon, Netflix, etc) to bid against each other for future all-inclusive rights packages they can offer on their platforms.

The situation magnifies the urgency for the NBA to formulate, in the near term, a national streaming RSN that could aggregate the Main Street teams and likely the Suns, Jazz, Blazers, Mavericks and Pelicans (whose games are over-the-air) on a single platform as soon as the 2026-27 season.

For instance, they could sell the streaming rights to those 18 teams in aggregate to Amazon, YouTube, Apple or the ESPN app for what is believed to be billions

Sports Business Journal

Related: Kevin Garnett Finally Returning to MN Timberwolves

In the short-term, while they wait for league-wide rights deals to get done both the Timberwolves and Wild — along with the other 30 FDSN teams across all three leagues — would be forced to eat most of what they don’t receive from Main Street Sports though the end of their 2025-26 seasons.

Then, each team would have to find a way to make up as much of those losses as possible. In all likelihood, most would offer direct-to-consumer viewing options and/or seek out short-term licensing deals each team would have to negotiate themselves — like the MN Twins did last year.