Just inside the Twins clubhouse – to the right as you walk in – a miniature zen garden fills the locker stall between those of pitchers Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan. A mini plastic tree and tiny Asian garden statue rest on a pan of white rocks, next to a tiny fountain with bubbling water and another, larger statue. And at the foot, a small gong.
This, Ryan hinted, was Gray’s handiwork; Ryan discovered it in June after returning from a bout with COVID-19. Gray, the veteran right-hander acquired from Cincinnati over the winter, said he wanted a place for teammates to find serenity and relieve the daily pressure of baseball and the pennant race. “I wish I had gotten a real bonsai (tree),” Gray said before a game earlier this month.
Meanwhile, outside Target Field, fans approaching Gates 29 found the opposite of zen and serenity: A Hennepin County deputy sheriff with a black assault rifle strapped across his chest. Half a dozen deputies working detail, three with rifles, provided coverage around the stadium perimeter. One deputy said “dozens” of fans thanked him for being there, though the only people in sight even slightly sketchy were a casually dressed scalper and a guy in a headset preaching about Jesus.
The Twins employed off-duty cops for additional security years before public safety in downtown Minneapolis became a concern, club president Dave St. Peter said. But the perception Minneapolis is unsafe remains one of the reasons Twins attendance is off almost 21% since 2019, the last “normal” season before the pandemic and the 2021-22 lockout – this despite the club leading the American League Central Division for almost four months.
It’s not the only reason, or even the most significant. Inflation, gas prices (falling, but still high) and lingering fallout from the pandemic and the lockout all played a role – not just in Minnesota, but across Major League Baseball.
Per Axios, 23 of 30 MLB teams are drawing fewer fans than in 2019. Overall MLB attendance at the All-Star Break in mid-July was down 6.4% from 2019. And season ticket sales are off 10% across the industry, per Sportico.
Going into this weekend’s series with San Francisco, the Twins ranked 20th among MLB’s 30 teams in attendance, averaging 22,291 per game. That’s about 10,000 less on average than Colorado, the last-place team in the NL West, and about 1,500 less than Washington, last in the NL East.
Through 63 dates the Twins have drawn 1,400,625 spectators. That’s down almost 370,000, or 20.9%, from the same point in 2019 (1,770,455). The falloff has worsened since the All-Star Break, when attendance ran 13.7 percent behind 2019, per Axios.
Last weekend the Twins inducted popular former manager Ron Gardenhire and former players Cesar Tovar and Dan Gladden into the club’s Hall of Fame.That, and the picture-perfect weather, should have brought out 30,000 or so each day. Instead, the games drew 21,781 and 24,802, respectively, in a ballpark that seats a little more than 39,000. And Monday night’s crowd of 18,595 was the smallest since May 26.
Except for a two-game visit by Milwaukee in mid-July, when visiting Brewers fans packed the joint, and Aug. 4, the night of a postgame concert by country star Cole Swindell, the Twins haven’t had a crowd of more than 30,000 since Opening Day. And that’s with a schedule packed with giveaways and special events. Things don’t get any easier with the State Fair upon us, school about to start and the struggling club falling behind Cleveland in the division race.
So, what happened? More than anything, St. Peter said, the inability to sell group tickets over the winter killed the Twins at the gate. Clubs shut down most business operations during the lockout, including ticket sales. St. Peter said that likely cost the Twins 3,000 to 5,000 tickets a night in June, July and August.
“We went from December 1 to the middle of March without a definite (season) start date,” he said. “While we were able to start on time, we weren’t able to go through our normal off-season progression around ticket sales. With the work stoppage, it really took a hit, not just in Minnesota but nationally. To some extent it’s impacted single game sales as well.”
The lockout meant no TwinsFest and a truncated Winter Caravan, limiting connections with fans. St. Peter also cited the absence of Twins games from many streaming services; cord-cutters and households without cable have no way to watch. None of that helped.
Still, there’s no getting around the safety issue. The club surveyed past ticket holders who haven’t bought tickets in 2022. St. Peter said 33% of respondents cited public safety as a factor, with 20% calling it the factor.
And yet, St. Peter said, 84% of fans who attended games this season said they felt safe at Target Field, compared to 6% unsafe and 10% with no opinion. That gives him hope that fans will eventually come back.
“I don’t think it’s fair to put it exclusively on public safety,” St. Peter said. “I’ll say this: I’ve been disappointed in our attendance. I thought we’d be drawing more people. There are some factors, but ultimately, we have to look at ourselves.
“We’ve spent a lot of time looking at the way we’re pricing our tickets, pricing our concessions, the promotional lineup, marketing the team in general. All of those topics are on the table for review and consideration. Because at some point, it’s incumbent upon us to create a value proposition here that fans want to be part of,” said St. Peter. “The worst thing we can do is just blame it on public safety, the economy, price of gas, and the lack of access to games on television. They might have some reality, but they also might be excuses. Organizationally, I can assure you that’s not the mindset.”
There’s one other factor St. Peter didn’t mention, something based on my Twitter feed and conversations with fans: Blunders on the baseball side that turned off potential ticket-buyers.
The club’s clumsy handling of Byron Buxton’s physical ailments and availability on a given day rubbed some fans the wrong way. Buxton doesn’t take batting practice on the field, meaning there’s a chance a family of Buxton fans from Fargo, Chisholm or Sleepy Eye could drive hours to a game and never see him at all if he’s not in the lineup. Who wants to explain that to crying six-year-old?
Unlike the charismatic Bomba Squad of 2019, this club lacks the big personalities and energy fans love. Carlos Correa is hardly Nelson Cruz, and rookie Jose Miranda has more RBI. Also, the bullpen stinks. No one wants to drive 300 miles to watch Emilio Pagan serve a game-losing home run.
The night in June where the Twins hit five home runs off Yankees star Gerrit Cole and still lost hardly inspired confidence, triggering memories of the club’s 18 consecutive postseason losses (14 to the Yanks). Traditionalists chafe at manager Rocco Baldelli following a game plan dictated by the baseball analytics department that often involves pulling the starting pitcher after two turns through the lineup, regardless of pitch count or effectiveness.
St. Peter thinks the new balanced schedule for 2023, with fewer games within the division and series against every MLB club, will spark more interest. And he’s hopeful the Twins will pull out of this funk and make a run at the Guardians, encouraging more ticket-buying in September.
“I’m bullish,” he said. “I don’t take the sky is falling approach. I think over time we’ll chip away at the public safety perception. The economy will stabilize, and hopefully we’ll get back to pre-pandemic attendance levels. We’ve seen it come back in some other markets around the country.”
A good friend of mine and I were talking last night. I mentioned the Twins were on free TV this coming Saturday. He said “Who cares”. He is as big a fan as I, but the many ways of losing have turned him off. The TWINS have been mediocre or worse in the last 3 months. Thank god for the month of April. We can afford to pay $80 a month for unneeded cable, but we refuse to do so. Our cords are cut for the TWINS. I read about them and listen if I am in the car. But must hear radio is not the same as must see tv. (Instant replay is a lot better on tv.)
Until television rights are reasonably priced, the interest in going to a live game will be lessened and lessened. I am not even sure of 2/3rds of the regular lineup, much less pitching.
Safety at the stadium is not the problem. As a 40 year retired metro transit driver, safety getting TO the game is the problem. Not the game arena itself. Protection on transit , bus and rail, is needed.
The team itself, and the choices made by its leadership is a column for another letter.
I agree. The safety getting to and from the stadium is why I have gone to zero Twins games since the Pandemic. I have been to Minor league games in Iowa, the Iowa Cubs, the Cedar Rapids Kernals… I feel safe there but damn, Minneapolis and the light rail scare the hell out of me and have since 2020.
The Vikings per game attendance last fall was almost the same as the 2019 attendance (down only 0.2 percent). And the Vikings fans had to come to the same downtown as Twins fans.
Perhaps the problem with Twins attendance isn’t external factors, but that fans don’t like the product on the field.
Baseball’s appeal is falling fast. My appetite has dropped like a rock.
A trip to the ballpark feels more and more like a trip to the State Fair. Once a year to say you went. Check the box.
Fewer and fewer Americans need or want a Pastime anymore. It shouldn’t take 200 minutes to play a game. Not to mention a game with fewer and fewer exciting moments sprinkled in those 200 minutes…who wants that?
Looking at the people who do show up, its older, whiter, and more suburban / rural than other sports. Just the sort of people who watch local news and think they are taking their lives into their hands by venturing into downtown.
On top of that, check out the March to October crowds across town at Allianz Field. Sellouts, high energy, and diversity and just 125 minutes with continuous activity and action to boot. That competition didn’t exist ten years ago and is on the rise every year.
Baseball is today’s sports dinosaur. It outlives its usefulness because old habits die hard. But to blame Group Sales on the anemic numbers? Maybe the Business side of the Twins is as inept as the Baseball side. Oh well.
You offered, “a game with fewer and fewer exciting moments sprinkled in those 200 minutes…who wants that?” That hits the nail on the head. By the time people have traveled into downtown from the suburbs, much less from even farther, they have committed an extra couple of hours to add to the 200 minutes you mention. When the highlights of a game take fewer than 30 seconds to review, that is a high time commitment. Not to mention they had to pay for tickets for the right to spend their time possibly seeing a player they admire but possibly seeing no one they know. And who doesn’t love spending $4 for a hot dog and $5 for a can of Bud Light (what a great deal!) at the Family-Friendly concession stand? Add to that the threat of having your cellphone stolen or of being assaulted and robbed before you even reach the park and you have an unattractive combination that is apparently easy to avoid. No amount of club publicity stunts will change the minds of folks who find baseball not worth the cost.
Safety isn’t the issue. Have you seen this team play? We bought one set of tickets per month when the Twins ran their $5 (plus exorbitant fees) promo early. We have to talk ourselves into going each time due to the lackluster play and injuries. So many blown games. The refusal to cut Emilio Pagan. All factors. But we didn’t consider safety to be an issue at all.
I don’t know how you can’t consider safety and issue? A lot of people love to “illegally” Park at the MOA and grab the light rail. The MOA was just recently in lock down then just search stuff like crimes Minneapolis light rail and the star, kstp, and twincities.com talk about how unsafe they are. I’d love to take my wife and kids to a ball game but the threat of being robbed or shot is not worth the risk just to see a ball game.
Because he’s not afraid for his safety? You know if you’re so utterly terrified of a few scary people on a train, they have parking ramps, right across the street?
Many factors rank far higher than safety in my decision not to go. Modern baseball, and the Twins are a prime example, isn’t remotely as interesting as it used to be. Way too many breaks in the action. I can’t imagine the smart phone generations being very interested in going.
Also, an embarrassingly long history of futility in the playoffs.
The 2019 season was totally awesome. Everything came together in a year that the Twins set the all time record for home runs in a season. It was pure magic. Of course, the Yankees ended the dream, but this year’s team is a pale imitation of that. Add to that those who are still cautious about the pandemic, inflation and George Floyd, and not bad!
I’ve been following the Twins since 1961. My summer nights over the past several decades have been spent watching Twins baseball on TV. Except this year. All I know about this Twins team is what I read about in the newspapers and from what I gather, they’re not a very interesting collection of players. Because I really don’t know. Whoever made the decision to not put the games on free, local TV is directly responsible for the decline in interest. Out of sight, out of mind.
There seems to be a common theme in the comments. I agree. It’s not about safety. It’s about a team that appears uninspired and lethargic.
Other than Arraez (and maybe Miranda), there’s nobody a kid or grown up kid can get excited about. Buxton is so overrated and had no business being named an All Star, yet our hometown broadcasters continue to treat him with kid gloves and spew accolades for this guy who plays less than half the games, usually strikes out, and never delivers a clutch hit.
The manager’s answer to his team’s disastrous slide was to gather the boys together and urge them to “have fun and be yourselves”. Seriously? Where’s Billy Martin when we need him?
I’m sad to say that this huge baseball and Twins fan no longer watches the games. And I have 18 of my 20 season ticket vouchers left and not much motivation to use them.
Sure, we have been in the postseason race, but only due to April success and being in the pathetic division we are in.
It’s a mediocre team so it shouldn’t be a mystery as to why attendance is mediocre. You realize how poor they are when they play the good teams. The recent series against the Dodgers and Astros really point to how poor they are. Having to watch Pagan pitch or Kepler hit with men on base might cost them several hundred fans a game by this time of the year.
By the way, I disagree with those on here suggesting baseball is a boring and dying sport. It’s not for everyone but there are still plenty of us who enjoy the pace (which has increased with recent revisions), and we like the laid back atmosphere — leaving the seat and wandering around, grabbing a hot dog and Coke, meeting new friends in the row behind you, etc.
Witness the growing popularity and international expansion of the Little League World Series. The future of baseball seems bright if you look at the youth interest here and around the world. This article provides a close view of the LLWS phenomena and impact. https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/08/24/little-league-world-series-75-daily-cover
To be totally honest, I have thought about going to a few games but, the crime in Minneapolis scares the absolute hell out of me. How it has gotten so out of control since 2020 just turns me off from wanted to rish mine and my families lives just to go and see a baseball game. Before 2020 I had no issues. In 2019 I took my daughter to her first ever twins game but today, I just can’t even imagine going on the light rail system or even stepping foot in Bloomington or Minneapolis.
Dude, we get it, you’ve done your job, could you move on now? Good grief, hope Dr. Evil and the Big Galoot pay well.
All valid points above. But you’re all missing one HUGE problem. It’s called three Yankees, Dodgers , Astros ( also called by another name that rhymes), and let’s not forget about the Brewers!
MLB has a problem and they aren’t willing to fix .No more amount of interleague play will solve it. It’s called Revenue sharing and parity( why do you think there NFL is so popular? )They need a complete overhaul, because it’s not working anymore. ( Except for the Yankees, Astros and Dodgers). It’s broken, FIX IT!
You guys… isn’t it obvious? It’s time for a new stadium!
Let’s just go with Frankie Viola’s analysis:
The @Twins have forgotten what baseball is all about….fundamentals, the belief in each other, the love of the daily grind….you don’t have baseball people leading this attitude and approach, you have a losing organization. Wrong leadership equals no chance to succeed.
Seeing professional hitters pull ground balls in to the shift is depressing. Also agreed on the decrease in exciting plays. Hit and run, double steal, bunting, breaking up a double play, tagging up it’s all gone. Homerun or strike out is about as boring as it gets. The most exciting player in my lifetime was Ricky Henderson and I don’t think he would even play in today’s game, which is sad.
A double into the corner is my favorite
Good I agree, not great. Also his 300 HRs were over a 25 year career. No way is taking a corner outfield spot with out all the steals. Looking at his stats again he was the best player of that era, amazing durability and sustainable performance.
Here’s the rub, while analytics might make for more efficient baseball, and the math geeks are having fun slapping themselves on the back, baseball isn’t the Math Bowl, it’s an entertainment enterprise. If your efficient brand of baseball isn’t entertaining, which given the dwindling interest since the analytics era has really taken hold, it clearly isn’t , you’ve kinda missed the point. I’ve watched baseball the better part of my 40 and some odd years, I don’t think I’ve watched more than 20 minutes this season. My kids PLAY baseball, and would be hard pressed to name a single major league player. Complain about the “old fashioned ball guys” all you like, if baseball doesn’t get “dumbed down” a little, it’s not gonna be around to argue about much longer.
But the winning doesn’t really matter. Tampa Bay is perpetually in talks of being moved because despite their great analytics success, no one cares. If the discussion is about the whole of baseball as an enterprise, which I assume the premise of Viola’s (and others) argument to be, it has to be a factor. Basketball has been boring, in my eyes, long before the 3-dunk era. Making it moreso didn’t change a thing.
I would suggest that it isn’t one reason, but all those listed. Watching another bull pen failure, uninspired play, 3 hour games, hone run or K, all add up to an unappealing product. Season with uncomfortable or criminal activity, it is not worth the drive.
Well, in terms of spectators and fans baseball has been in decline for years now hasn’t it? And the spectacle of millionaires arguing over billions in revenue while playing in taxpayer subsidized stadiums doesn’t help.
The purists will grab their hearts and start to slump over:
3 balls and 2 strikes in an at bat
4 outs per inning and a 7 inning game
A faster game with more scoring action
MLB needs to try more radical changes in the minors NOW