Anyone who follows the Minnesota Lynx even casually knows the basic details about the team, one of the WNBA’s glamour franchises. The three championships in five years. The four U.S. Olympians on the roster. This year’s signature accomplishment: a league record 13-game winning streak to start the season.

But here’s something you may not know, and probably shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with women’s sports in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market: The WNBA’s defending champion owns one of league’s weakest local television deals.

Eight of the league’s 12 teams will see more of their games on local TV this season than the Lynx, according to figures compiled by the WNBA. Los Angeles leads with 25 telecasts, followed by Chicago with 20 and Dallas with 18. These totals don’t include games broadcast on ESPN or NBA TV.

The eight Lynx broadcasts scheduled on Fox Sports North (FSN) – six at home, two on the road — are fewer than all but Connecticut (seven), San Antonio (six) and, surprisingly, 2014 league champion Phoenix (six). FSN aired nine Lynx games in 2014 and ’15. ESPN, meanwhile, plans to show the Lynx six times, more than any other team.

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The lack of televised games flamed into a social media issue among Lynx fans late last month, when FSN declined to show any of the home-and-home series with the then-similarly undefeated Los Angeles Sparks. Neither game — one on a Tuesday afternoon in L.A. and another on a Friday night here — was on FSN’s original broadcast schedule.

A Twins-Yankees telecast conflicted with the Friday game, but why not put the Lynx on FSN Plus? That’s what that channel is there for, right?

Not this time. FSN senior vice president and general manager Mike Dimond told the Star Tribune, “…we are not in a position to absorb the additional cost of producing the game.” So FSN Plus aired drag racing.

That didn’t sit well with some folks, including the woman who coaches the team, Cheryl Reeve.

After my pal Howard Sinker of the Star Tribune, a Lynx season ticket holder and an adjunct professor at Macalester, stirred the pot on his StribSports Upload blog, the Lynx coach weighed in via Twitter.

@StribSports So let’s talk about this…how can it be that this team does not have a local tv deal to broadcast this GREAT PRODUCT??? #Lynx — Cheryl Reeve (@LynxCoachReeve) June 22, 2016

Reeve told me she wasn’t calling out FSN, just asking a general question that bugs her: What’s it going to take to see more Lynx games televised? “When I’m out and about, I hear a lot of people wanting more, wanting to see us more,” Reeve said. “I think our fans deserve more, and we have to find a way to make that happen. Because that is what’s going to move the Lynx forward, the WNBA forward, and women forward. I simply would like to see our community, as we have on so many occasions, be a leader in this area.”

FSN guards its contract details like the nuclear codes, but Timberwolves and Lynx president Chris Wright confirmed the network holds exclusive rights to T-Wolves and Lynx games under one deal. In other words, even if the Lynx paid for airtime and production costs, no one else locally can show their games without FSN’s permission. Wright declined to disclose the length of the contract or when it expires. (Every WNBA team produces a live broadcast at each home game, available via the League Pass app or live-streamed on WNBA.com for a fee, $14.95 for the season.) Article continues after advertisement