Minnesota Wild fans now know where they’ll be watching next season - and what it’ll cost them.
On Wednesday, the team announced a multi-year local streaming deal with Prime Video under the Wild+ banner, making it the exclusive streaming home for Wild games inside the club’s local broadcast territory. That footprint includes Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and portions of Iowa and Wisconsin. The price is set at $19.99 per month or $99.99 per year.
A Prime membership is not required to buy Wild+. Fans only need a free Amazon account. Even those who already pay for Prime must still purchase the Wild+ package separately to stream games.
That setup differs from what some other NHL teams are doing on Prime Video. Ducks and Stars fans can watch their local games at no extra charge if they already subscribe to Amazon Prime, since those broadcasts are included with the standard membership. The Wild joins the Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, and Blues in charging a separate $19.99 monthly fee, with no Prime subscription needed.
Prime Video will carry every regular-season game that is not exclusively nationally televised, along with locally produced first-round Stanley Cup Playoff games. Fans outside the local territory will still be able to follow through NHL Center Ice and NHL Power Play on the ESPN app.
The games won’t disappear from cable and satellite, either. They’ll still air linearly on the packages that FanDuel Sports North previously occupied, so existing cable and satellite subscribers should not have to make any changes. The specific channel numbers have not been announced yet, but are expected before the season starts.
The Wild’s price point also fits into a wider Minnesota sports pattern. Twins.TV carries Minnesota Twins games at the same $19.99 monthly rate.
Minnesota United games are available through Apple TV’s regular subscription, which runs $12.99 per month or $99.99 annually. The price for the Timberwolves’ new DAZN partnership has not been announced, though it is expected to land in a similar range, around $19.99 per month.
For Minnesota sports fans, the bigger picture is the one that keeps getting more expensive: how many teams you want to follow. A Star Tribune calculation found that keeping up with the Vikings, Twins, Wolves, Wild, Loons, and Lynx could run about $1,500 a year once all the needed services are stacked together.
Each one looks manageable on its own. Together, they add up fast.
Last season, Minnesota fans could get Wild and Timberwolves games - plus some Lynx games - through a single $19.99 FanDuel Sports Network subscription. But FanDuel Sports Network has run into financial trouble over the past year, forcing teams still tied to those platforms to search for more dependable distribution.
By that standard, Prime Video is a solid landing spot for the Wild in this new broadcast landscape. It may mean one more subscription on the list, but it also puts the team on a platform that is already familiar to a wide audience.
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