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.

For now, Kirill Kaprizov remains unextended. Marco Rossi and the Wild haven’t spoken in months, either, after he and his camp felt lowballed and disrespected during the playoffs and earlier contract discussions.

So far, Minnesota’s only notable addition has been Vladimir Tarasenko, who’s coming off one of the worst seasons of his NHL career. Don’t fret though, MN Wild fans, because the Kaprizov deal will still probably get done.

And it doesn’t seem like other teams are jumping at the chance to get their hands on Rossi, so he very well may be on his way back to St. Paul by the end of the summer, too. Where Wild owner Craig Leipold should apparently focus his attention is on his team’s television broadcast.

Minnesota Wild TV broadcast ranked near bottom of NHL

This, after the Minnesota Wild TV broadcast on FanDuel Sports North was ranked near the very bottom of the NHL, in a recent fan study done by The Athletic. According to their report, Wild games on FSN rank 27th overall, among the 32 NHL teams.

Related: Report: Kirill Kaprizov Contract Talks with MN Wild Stalled Out

Worse yet, it’s local fans who hate it most. Minnesota scored a 3.91 “local score” among hockey fans who were surveyed. Outsiders who have seen Wild broadcasts ranked it 14th overall. Last year, the MN Wild ranked 25. Without a doubt, sports fans in this town are tired of Fox Sports North.

Not only have games become increasingly difficult to watch in recent years, but those who made their opinions known in this survey are also disgusted by the presentation itself. Everything from the look, to the lag, to the glitches. Fans are over it.

The Broadcast: FanDuel Sports Network North carries Wild games, with Anthony LaPanta on play-by-play. Wes Walz, Ryan Carter and Lou Nanne rotate on color.

Local score: 3.91 (29th

National score: 2.99 (14th)

Last season rank: 25

The results: Minnesota’s poor ranking is the culmination of a few issues. One of them is FanDuel Sports Network’s production and presentation. Some fans reported technical glitches related to lagging and audio sync, while others lamented the broadcast’s look.

“The graphics and studio setup for Minnesota is awful,” said a Wild fan. “Garishly green and red. When I see Sportsnet or the feed for the Canadian market local broadcasts, it’s such a cleaner look.”

The Athletic

Fans want major changes to Wild TV broadcasts

According to The Athletic’s survey, fans are fond of play-by-play voice, Anthony LaPanta, though they aren’t all that interested in his side-tangents and random statistics. The same cannot be said for LaPanta’s bevy of color commentating partners.

Apparently, fans want an end to the ever-flowing rotation in the booth. Through this poll, they are calling for Ryan Carter to be Anthony LaPanta’s permanent color commentator. Wes Walz, on the other hand, they want permanently delegated to the postgame show.

Anthony LaPanta drew mostly positive feedback on play-by-play — though some fans noted that he goes off on too many tangents where he’s telling stories or citing obscure stats — but the rotating nature of the color analyst gig didn’t go over well.

There were a lot of complaints about Walz specifically, who fans prefer in a studio analyst role. “It would be nice if they would just keep Ryan Carter in the booth as the color analyst and Wes Walz in the studio (as an analyst),” said one fan.

The Athletic

We’ll see if this fan study, along with other complaints they are surely receiving directly, move the Minnesota Wild to make any major changes to their TV broadcast for the upcoming 2025-26 season. In today’s day and age, this is the LAST poll you want to be ranked near the bottom of.

There was only one thing that Timberwolves fans missed more in game one than seeing their team with a lead — something they never owned after the first quarter — and that’s regular season TV broadcasters Michael Grady and Jim Peterson.

Instead, we got TNT’s Brian Anderson and Stan Van Gundy, who coached in the NBA for 25 seasons, and who now might be the worst color commentator in all of sports right now.

Stan Van Gundy can't understand why Minnesota hates Jimmy Butler so much. It took four minutes of this series for Stan to reveal himself as an idiot. That's gotta be a record.

— Minnesota Sports Fan (@realmnsportsfan) May 7, 2025

Van Gundy knew so little about the ins and outs of the Timberwolves season and roster the other night, that I can’t imagine he did much of any research whatsoever, prior to game one. And now, Stan and his TNT crew are back on the call for game two…

FanDuel Sports Network North is done covering Minnesota Timberwolves playoff games in 2025. FDSN’s play by play voice for the past two seasons, Michael Grady, wasn’t on the call for FanDuel Sports Network’s Wolves coverage in round one, because he was calling first round playoff games for ESPN.

Michael Grady lands play by play job with Amazon

Grady started with the MN Timberwolves prior to the 2022-23 season. Three years later, it’s becoming increasingly unclear as to whether or not the former Brooklyn Nets sideline reporter — and now one of the rising stars in NBA play by play — will be back calling Wolves games for FanDuel Sports Network North at all next season.

On Thursday, in a report by Ryan Glasspiegel (Front Office Sports), news broke that Michael Grady has landed a job with Amazon, as part of their WNBA and NBA coverage for next season. Not only is he now one of the top guys for Amazon’s basketball coverage, but he has also been in talks with NBC about joining their new NBA broadcast crew as well.

Michael Grady is expected to become Amazon’s top WNBA announcer in addition to calling NBA games for the tech giant’s Prime Video streaming service, sources tell Front Office Sports. The deal has not been finalized.

In an interesting wrinkle, Grady has also had talks to call NBA and WNBA games for NBC, FOS has learned. In this potential arrangement, it’s possible Grady would work for both Amazon and NBC.

Ryan Glasspiegel – Front Office Sports

One things for sure, Michael Grady brought us Goosebumps every time this season. 🔥

He joins my show today LIVE streaming at 3:30PM CT on X pic.twitter.com/j98OvcNoHY

— The Daily Wolves (@TheDailyWolves) April 15, 2025

What is Grady’s future with the Minnesota Timberwolves

Grady, 42, will join a star-studded broadcast lineup for Amazon’s upcoming NBA coverage — which holds rights to the NBA Finals in 2028, 2032 and 2036 — includes Ian Eagle and Kevin Harlan on play by play, as well as Taylor Rooks, Dirk Nowitzki, Blake Griffin, Dwyane Wade, Candace Parker and Steve Nash, according to Glasspiegel’s report at FOS.

Related: Chris Finch Puts Anthony Edwards on Blast After Timberwolves Loss

There has been no information released as to Michael Grady’s future plans as Minnesota Timberwolves play by play voice. He now holds the same national role at ESPN and Amazon. Especially if Grady were to get a the job at NBC, how much time will he have on his hands to travel with the Wolves all winter calling their 82-game schedule?

Minnesota Sports Fan has reached out to Michael Grady for comment and/or more information. If he responds, any relevant details he relays will be added to this article. Grady’s broadcast partner at FanDuel Sports Network North, Jim Peterson — who’s been working with Wolves radio at KFAN during the playoffs — tweeted about the promotion this afternoon.

I’m so proud of my guy @Grady for landing this groundbreaking national broadcast deal. Michael will be the Breen, Eagle, Harlan of his generation with few peers.

I have so much gratitude to have worked with him for the past 3 years and hope to continue working as many Wolves… pic.twitter.com/5kQdretcu1

— Jim Petersen (@JimPeteHoops) May 8, 2025

I’m so proud of my guy @Grady for landing this groundbreaking national broadcast deal. Michael will be the Breen, Eagle, Harlan of his generation with few peers.

I have so much gratitude to have worked with him for the past 3 years and hope to continue working as many Wolves games as his schedule permits in the future.

Congratulations Grady…you are the best!