The Twins Are Set Up To Attract Quality Ownership

The changes at Target Field keep on coming. Last Thursday, the Pohlad family announced their intentions to sell the Minnesota Twins.

The end of Minnesota’s disappointing 2024 season has brought about many quick changes in the two weeks since the season ended. Coaches David Popkins, Derek Shomon, Rudy Hernandez, and Tony Diaz, along with general manager Thad Levine are out. In are a new television distribution service through Major League Baseball and new hitting coach Matt Borgschulte.

The Pohlad family has owned the franchise for 40 years. In 1984, Carl Pohlad purchased the Twins for $44 million, and early indicators were that they could sell the team for anywhere from $1.5 to $2 billion. However, a few things are packaged to sweeten the deal and the asking price.

Good situations can attract good ownership, and the Twins have that on the table from the Pohlads, despite how fans have felt about them the last three months and years counting.

They have a competitive roster that just needs a few additions to make a deep postseason with an expanded payroll. Their ballpark lease is in good standing for the next decade and a half, and although television revenue is down considerably, the team is in a broadcasting safety net. It can prove to be fertile ground for the future of watching games.

The Roster

The Twins roster did not end the 2024 season in the greatest shape. Nearly everyone fell short in their performance as the team finished 12-27 over their final 39 games, but that’s not to say every player has lost their potential forever.

A core of players led by Carlos Correa, Pablo López, and Byron Buxton is an enticing roster to begin new franchise ownership under. Other teams that have been for sale recently, like the Miami Marlins and Kansas City Royals, have sold with rosters considered in a “rebuilding phase” and are not contending for the postseason for years to come.

The Twins are not in a rebuilding phase. Although their late-season collapse suggests otherwise, their roster is still in place. They could be ready to compete for the postseason again in 2025.

There will be shakeups regarding who will stay and go this off-season. However, keeping the core players at the top of the payroll together, such as Griffin Jax, Joe Ryan, Royce Lewis, and Matt Wallner, could be worthwhile for whoever takes over the Twins next.

Target Field’s Lease

One of the best parts about the team being up for sale for fans is the assurance on paper the Twins won’t be leaving anytime soon. The Twins have signed a 30-year lease with the Minnesota Ballpark Authority that kicked in once Target Field opened in 2010, giving the Twins a home there through the 2039 season.

Being held to that lease, it will be a long while before a new owner could even begin to discuss the Twins moving elsewhere if they ever feel like doing so. The longevity of the lease is still intact, and there is more concern about what bills they have to pay within the lease, such as operations, utilities, and renovations.

Twins fans are not unfamiliar with the threat of the team leaving Minnesota. In 1997, Carl Pohlad pushed the effort to sell the team to North Carolina businessman Don Beaver. In 2001, the short-lived MLB contraction plan put the Twins and Montreal Expos on the table to be removed from the league before the 2002 season due to their low profits and outdated ballparks with Olympic Stadium and the Metrodome.

Fortunately, the Twins were not contracted from the league. Just 10 days after their proposal, Hennepin County Judge Harry Crump ruled the Twins must honor the lease through the 2002 season and not disband the franchise. The Twins then defied the odds with their 2002, and any discussions of them leaving Minnesota have never come up again. Hopefully, the next owner will not entertain moving the team from their beloved fanbase.

Future of Broadcast Distribution

A day before the team announced that the Pohlads would explore selling the Twins, the team announced that all of its games would be broadcast under Major League Baseball’s streaming umbrella in 2025.

The Twins have the safety net for operations under MLB’s umbrella and will be more accessible to nearly three to four million people within their television distribution market. There is no clear idea of how many people among these four million people will subscribe to MLB’s service once it becomes available.

This summer, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that of the three teams under their broadcasting umbrella for 2024, the Padres had the highest number of in-market subscribers to Padres.tv, with nearly 40,000 people subscribed. San Diego’s previous MLB.tv blackout area comprised California’s five southernmost counties and parts of Los Angeles County, with nearly 10 million households.

It’s hard to gauge the number of subscribers the Twins can draw in, with their distribution market being two-thirds smaller than San Diego's. However, anywhere between 20,000 and 30,000 could be considered a healthy start following a season when Comcast subscribers lost out on watching games for half the year.

The future of broadcasting Twins games will not always be under MLB’s umbrella, which could be an enticing factor for a new owner. Especially when just next door to Target Field, the Marc Lore, Alex Rodriguez, and Michael Bloomberg ownership group has floated the idea to investors of creating a new regional sports to host the Timberwolves, Lynx, and possibly the Twins and Wild.

It could be the start of getting on the ground floor of the future of broadcasting sports or an enterprise that leads into another Bally Sports. It’s too early to say, but the opportunity is there for the taking.

The Twins' future is unknown now, but there will be plenty of speculation about new ownership throughout the off-season. If the Twins can get a new owner lined up, perhaps this billionaire would be willing to spend money on payroll, knowing that it improves the value of their investment.

Even if they’re only willing to raise the payroll to $175 to $180 million, which would still be franchise record highs, it could be enough to rekindle fan interest and see the Twins compete in the ALCS for the first time since 2002.