They tried before and failed because cable wouldn't pick them up because Fox sports forced the issue. Now that it's out it could be done, but how much can they really make? Not knowing the Wolves and Wild contracts with Bally would be hard to come by, chances are he would need to be a full partner, which also leads to problems as there is so much overlap in games, they would have to have a second channel. , like the one Bally has.
As for the U of M, they have a network and would not be allowed to have games, even for minor sports, broadcast most likely outside of the big 10 network. As for the smaller schools, they would certainly be willing to sell TV rights, but how many would were the Geminis willing to pay for them? The bigger issue is outside of live events how much will they get people to watch and how much ad space can they sell. Will they get what they need from the TV providers to pay for the channel?
I personally see the future of cast sports as solo runs with pay stream options for the season. We've been blacked out before because of local broadcast rights, but my guess is that unless a local broadcast pays huge, the teams will make more if someone pays $80 to $100 for a full season stream through MLB or other apps.
I'm not sure what the average numbers were since 2023 but in 2021 they were very low but my guess is that if someone bought an entire season from the start even if the team does poorly and you stop watching until the end year, they still have the money. So for math purposes let's say 125k buy a full season pack at $100. That is 12.5 million. A lot less than they were getting paid by Bally, but if you're also selling ads, I'm guessing they'd make a lot more. I might be wrong.
I don't think the Twins and other local sports will invest in trying to build a network right now. Too much question in the future of the cable/dish and being twins failed once before will make them stop.
