In announcing their bombshell in a news release last week, the Pohlad family chose their words carefully: “After months of thoughtful consideration, our family reached a decision this summer to explore selling the Twins.”
Several days later, this thought keeps coming back to me: It’s a lot easier to understand why they would want to sell the Twins than it is to figure out who would want to get into the business of owning a midsize market baseball team right now.
Will they actually be able to sell the team?
The Pohlad family might find multiple interested buyers during their exploration, but the economics of the Twins appear a bit fraught to the naked eye.
Attendance at Target Field flatlined in 2024 at 1,951,616. If we can suggest that 2020 (no fans), 2021 (limited fans for part of the year) and 2022 (pandemic emergence) were all impacted by COVID, the 2024 figure was the lowest for the Twins in any non-COVID season since 2004 (way back when they still had several seasons left in the Metrodome).
The regional TV situation is complex. The Twins will reach far more fans in 2025 by partnering with MLB on broadcasts — a welcome change after the lucrative but frustrating final few years on Bally Sports North — but they will lose a sizable chunk of guaranteed revenue (a figure close to $55 million in 2023, the last year for which figures have been reported).
