TL:DR – Highpoints
- Family decisions are not made by a single member of the family, decisions are made by voting within the family. There are some younger family members who appear to be the driving force. My take on this is that they want their money now – while they are young – and you can't take a loan or draw income from the team unless you work for it.
- Had the Twins increased payroll by $40 million annually – it would have ate up the increase in value of the team from $44 million to 1.7 Billion (Est) – Yes, it probably would have, but it also may have brought in more revenue and we might have more than 2 World Series Wins.
- The Twins did consistently "make a profit" year over year from the Twins (Profit being defined as Income from all sources >= Expenses of running the team) – They had some good years, but also had some bad years. Mostly agree with this one. All it takes is a key injury or a pitcher not performing and attendance dives.
- Based on current playoffs / situation it takes on average a payroll of $235 million to guarantee making the playoffs. I think the Yankees and Dodgers and maybe the Padres / Phillies are skewing this number. And last year – the Mets had the highest payroll in MLB and did not make the playoffs.
- The sale could drag on for a year or more. There LIKELY will not be a buyer emerging who is "local" to the Twin Cities. If you look at the other 3 (well, 2 technically) teams that have sold locally – none of them were to "local" buyers. And the 3rd (Wolves) will also sell to out of state interests, depending on the ruling of the arbitrator.
I've added my 2 cents worth in italics after each point. Overall the author did a good job of digging into the inner workings of a very private family (Pohlads) and coming up with information about who / why they are pushing the sale. I think it were strictly up to the older Pohlads (the children and grand children of Carl) they would keep the team, but I think the younger grand children and great grand children want to cash out and set different courses for the family's money.
9 comments
Good stuff- thanks for posting!
It’s simple. The Pohlads are money grubbing cheap. They inherited the club(business) 15 years ago. The 15 year tax write off of the club is expiring. Now they want to sell after their tax benefit is gone. They will ask $2B and settle around $1.7B and back the Brinks truck up to carry the cash away to their Scrooge McDuck lair.
The article was very cringe.
I find the whole “suddenly contrarian” switcheroo by people on the pohlads after they announced the sale to be very midwit.
There is no need for a call to arms to defend an ownership group that tried to contract the team and has done 30 years with 2 playoff game wins. Let’s just let them go.
it’s safe to say that fans should be excited about the very realistic possibility of better ownership coming soon.
attendance dies because the Pohlads have made an existence of not caring or bothering to give minimal effort. if the fan base sees an ownership that wants to win they are more forgiving on lean and rebuilding years because they believe it is working towards something. When the twins go on poor runs the fans know the Pohlads are okay with the status quo so there is nothing to keep them engaged or invested.
blaming attendance woes on anyone other than the ownership and their terrible decision making over the past for decades is such a cop out.
let the nepo babies have their cash out, jesus just get it done so we can file the pohlad name into unpleasant but mercifully past memories already.
Between the fan hatred and the fiasco surrounding the TV rights, I think the family realized the team might actually take a hit in value. They are getting out now to minimize the damage. Good riddance.
The author claims that treating the Twins as a loss-leader is… not workable? or something because the average playoff-team payroll is way higher. Not a compelling argument.
I don’t think people should care about thr team selling to locals. Pohlads are local and they tried to move the team and zap it from existence.
I’m also struck by the comment that Joe really liked a position with baseball, but his cousins wanted out.
We never expected them to increase payroll by $40 million every year. We just ask that you spend SOME money when the team has an obvious need, and definitely don’t CUT payroll when the team has an obvious need.