RandBall: Selling the Twins makes a lot more sense than buying them

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.

The Pohlads, after all, just “right-sized” the payroll with a $30 million reduction in line with keeping it running like a profitable business. If payroll remains around $130 million in 2025, there will be little to no room to improve the roster and placate a fan base still angered by what transpired on the field in 2024.

One such fan wrote to me and I read his letter on Tuesday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

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).

How and when that money will be recouped is a future question. MLB viewers also skew far older than those of other major pro leagues — 15 years older, in fact, than those who watch the NBA on TV.

If a new owner wanted to build up real estate around the ballpark, the confines of and concerns over downtown Minneapolis are obstacles. Building a Target Field replacement in the suburbs in order to have more room for development (like the Braves did) is not an option here for at least 15 more seasons.

Any owner with a shred of business sense would have to run the Twins in a manner similar to how the Pohlad family has operated the team — and also hope that franchise values (Forbes says the Twins are worth close to $1.5 billion) aren’t headed for a tipping point and/or a cliff at some point.

Of course, it is also possible that the Twins would attract a buyer who simply wanted to own a team for joy and ego above profit — someone who would get out the checkbook and sign Sonny Gray because they liked watching him pitch and wanted to put a winner on the field.

That’s about the only archetype that would both make sense and be an upgrade over the 40-year Pohlad run.

If they can’t find someone like that, they might have no choice but to keep owning the Twins.