Sen. Tina Smith takes aim at Comcast on behalf of ‘furious’ constituents

If you’re a Twins fan and Comcast cable subscriber frustrated by the cable company’s decision more than a month ago to drop Bally Sports North in a pricing dispute, know this:

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith is frustrated, too.

The Minnesota senator sent a letter this week on her official U.S. Senate stationery to Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts urging the company to restart negotiations. “My constituents are furious,” she wrote.

In a follow-up interview with the Star Tribune that appears on Thursday’s “Daily Delivery” podcast, Sen. Smith expanded on her thoughts and feelings.

“I hear so much about this from my constituents and I come from a big baseball fan family myself. Springtime comes and you are excited to watch the Twins and you can’t go to the games all the time,” she said. “And so watching the Twins on television as a fine part of Minnesota’s summer tradition and then to just not be able to have access to that is a huge blow. And I’m frustrated.”

In the letter, Smith frames up the parameters of how Comcast dropped Bally Sports channels at the beginning of May. In negotiations with Diamond Sports, the parent company that operates Bally Sports channels, Comcast was attempting to put the Bally Sports channels on a different pricing tier. That was the main sticking point in talks.

Diamond Sports filed for bankruptcy more than a year ago and has been working through a reorganization process that is slated to culminate in late July, which creates both complications and urgency in the negotiations.

Bally Sports North (previously Fox Sports North) has been dropped from various other carriers in recent years, including streaming services such as Hulu and YouTube TV as well as Dish Network.

“It seems like every season there’s a new set of rules and a new kind of hoops that you have to figure out how to jump through just as a fan and as a viewer,” said Smith, adding that while she understands negotiations are complicated it shouldn’t come at the expense of fans.

In her letter, Smith writes that she is concerned about what seems to be an impasse between the two parties. But she hopes amplifying the conversation will help lead to a resolution.

“I don’t have a magic wand here. I can’t fix this problem by myself,” she said. “But I do have the power of the bully pulpit and I can talk about it with people and raise awareness of it and hope to put some public pressure on them so that they will get back to the negotiating table.”