With Correa Gone, What Will Bring Fans Back to Target Field?

[Fire Dan Gladden]

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

Neither is here past this year. Those are the players you trade in a youth movement. It is one plan or the other....

I am going to politely disagree with you Mike.  I have used the phrase retooling over the last few weeks when I talk about this.  The Twins already have a fair amount of talent currently on the roster, especially when you are talking about the AL Central.

If they were completely rebuilding, then yes, those players would likely be gone.  We would be talking about 2-3 years (at least) before winning would be expected.

As they are retooling, I think that is why you are seeing them basically stand pat.  They have almost an entire starting rotation coming back from injury.  Jeffers, Miranda, Gordon, Ryan, need to show they can maintain at this level.  They may be betting on a Kepler rebound with the shift going away.  But they still have a decent core in Buxton, Polanco, Arraez.  Add Farmer and Vazquez as viable pieces... who knows?  They could win 70 or they could lose 70.  They are still in a a position to add salary if they win.

 

[ashbury]

2 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

Make the game on the field the secondary entertainment… Take a page out of the indyball Saints or Savannah Bananas’ playbook and get as gimmicky as possible.

This is on the right track. They still need to be major league, and not get accused of bush league antics. 

But plenty of other teams have fun traditions that might seem unsophisticated to visitors, so I'm not afraid to push boundaries.

Here's one. Get certain fans in each section installed as "official" cheer leaders of the game, maybe in return for a free soft drink, and let a Fenway like atmosphere start to evolve where cheering is organic.  Get rid of the stupid Everybody Clap Clap Clap audio clip.  I know managing 100 loud fans will require ongoing work; this is an ongoing theme, the Twins looking for little investment.  But Fenway fans can be profane, and the ushers manage to take care of it.

[Irishman]

Just win, baby!   Or fans won’t come watch!

[adorduan]

Winning.

[adorduan]

4 hours ago, Melissa Berman said:

Yes, the pitch clock! I neglected to mention that, you're totally right. It will be really interesting to see if the shortened game times (around 30 minutes?) will have any impact across baseball. I know it will help keep the attention of some of my friends I go to games with

You are going to LOVE the pitch clock. I guarantee it.

[troyjuhn]

Sadly, in terms of attendance, it's always hard to sell the Twins even in Minneapolis. It's never really obvious to me when I actually go to games, but I haven't been at Target field since 2019 and that was the year, we were actually good, and it was also in July. Most games I watched last year, even though we were first place most of the year, it just looked empty. 

[TwinsAlmostWin]

Saying the Twins are underwhelming and disappointing is somewhere between a severe understatement and flat out accurate. Casual fans won't show up to watch that ****. The Twins won't either win, or have promise, until they acquire players, and a team, that people can actually believe in, and therefore limited fans. I think they need a lineup that includes a superstar that plays regularly (unfortunately ours is Buxton), 4 solid everyday players (anything from a Castellanos to Urshela type), a couple young talented players with upside (Kiriloff/Larnach), and maybe 1 spot in the lineup that is a hole, plus 1 ace (Rodon), a solid 2-3 (Gray, Maeda, Ryan), an inning eater who finds some magic every now (Ober/Mahle) and then, a revolving door of opportunists in  the 5th spot of the rotation (Fill in the blank). Writing this makes me feel like I'm asking for a Mercedes Maybach from my 3 year old nephew for Christmas...

I genuinely respect people who still hold out hope that the Twins "might run a better squad out there next year, ya never know!?" I personally don't have hope for them. I'll still be a fan, and follow the team, but I have zero hope for this franchise until they put together a promising roster. 

[Nashvilletwin]

It certainly won’t be Kyle Farmer, Max Kepler or Jorge Polanco.  As much as I respect those three as baseball players, Farmer is just not going to make me turn up at the park and Max and Jorge - well, I’ve been there and done that with them.

[dgdynasty]

and i thought last season was going to be bad..

[theBOMisthebomb]

15 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

Back in my college days and the Timberwolves were a terrible team, they offered a ticket upgrade from the upper to lower level if you showed up early enough. I got to see Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook destroy the Wolves up close and personal! 

The Twins are truly approaching the apathy level of the Timberwolves from 2006-2020. Not even free tickets to the game would entice my friend group of casual Twins fans. 

Yes, I offer free Twins tickets to casual friends, co-workers, and family all season long. The success rate when I ask someone new is not sterling. I have a group of diehards that I know will go to the game and normally stay with asking them. Now, amazingly in 2019, people wanted tickets once the Bomba Squad started rolling. Everyone loves a winner and it's difficult to get people off the couch. As someone said earlier, the casual fan will go to watch winning and home runs.  

[Beast]

Nothing, probably.  They’ve run this thing into the ground.

Nobody cares anymore (or, very few, anyway).  They’ve lost the trust of the fan base with the “we’ll go all in when the time is right,” premise.  People know they’re swindlers.  They just don’t make moves to win baseball.  It’s all PR, profit maximization, etc.  They didn’t sign Correa because they thought it was lead to success.  It was a deal with any easy that they could market and turn into a quick money grab until he opted out and walked.

A couple times a decade when they look like they have a real chance, they get left behind at the trade deadline and absolutely obliterated in the playoffs.

One of the richest ownership groups in the league once had many fans convinced that spending will destroy the franchise.  There’s clearly still many left with severe Stockholm syndrome left that drone that mantra like zombies.  But, for many the spell is wearing off.

Frankly, they need a wake up call.  I hope that place is embarrassingly empty.  For one, I won’t invest a dollar until they prove they’re willing to (no, signing a washed up Josh Donaldson, and a once in a lifetime one year deal for Correa after a pandemic, doesn’t negate that fact).  There is just no hope, here.  Their absolute commitment to being non-competitive and sucking every dollar they can since buying the team has ruined baseball in Minnesota.  They lied to our faces in order for us to allow them syphon money from the tax base for their stadium.  Again, only to rip us off for a financial windfall for the family.  They’ve been one of the most inept franchises in the MLB since that place opened.

Then, on top of it, they’re so damn tone deaf and out of touch with reality, they they make some big event out of announcing another massive nepotistic move.  “Guys, we gave Joe Pohlad a lofty title that he didn’t earn!  Everybody applaud him!”

For me, it’s almost getting to the point where the Pohlads are supervillains.  Easily on the list of worst ownership groups in sports.  I’m terms of results (have they ever made a good decision?, I challenge you to point to one) and just general likeability.  This thing is just dead on arrival as long as they’re in charge.

Not only does it frustrate fans.  But just imagine everyone tied to the franchise. Imagine how it impacts places like this website.  Podcasts.  Restaurants and bars around the stadium.  They’re screwing everybody.

[nclahammer]

If you win, they will come.  Just win baby!

[Melissa Berman]

15 minutes ago, nclahammer said:

If you win, they will come.  Just win baby!

[Melissa Berman]

10 hours ago, troyjuhn said:

Sadly, in terms of attendance, it's always hard to sell the Twins even in Minneapolis. It's never really obvious to me when I actually go to games, but I haven't been at Target field since 2019 and that was the year, we were actually good, and it was also in July. Most games I watched last year, even though we were first place most of the year, it just looked empty 

I went to 56 games with my Twins pass last year (I know) and a lot of the games were quite empty. The biggest draws of the season were Prince Night, the Brewers series, and the Dodgers series. At least they offered lots of deals to get to the ballpark for cheap. I like to think that even the Twins aren't playing fantastic, on a beautiful night it's a pleasant place to be, but obviously us hardcore fans expect more 

[Melissa Berman]

13 hours ago, ashbury said:

This is on the right track. They still need to be major league, and not get accused of bush league antics. 

But plenty of other teams have fun traditions that might seem unsophisticated to visitors, so I'm not afraid to push boundaries.

Here's one. Get certain fans in each section installed as "official" cheer leaders of the game, maybe in return for a free soft drink, and let a Fenway like atmosphere start to evolve where cheering is organic.  Get rid of the stupid Everybody Clap Clap Clap audio clip.  I know managing 100 loud fans will require ongoing work; this is an ongoing theme, the Twins looking for little investment.  But Fenway fans can be profane, and the ushers manage to take care of it.

This is a great idea. It's a middle ground between the actors who run around hyping up the crowd at Saints games and what's already being done at MLB ballparks 

[specialiststeve]

Winning baseball. Period.

[Werbellik]

I'll come to a couple games a year. The Misses and I are 63. We're from up north a ways but currently live in the Northwest Metro.

We went to a Cleveland and KC game last summer. 2 tickets, top of lower deck right field. 40 bucks apiece. A beer, a water, a pretzel, and a cold kamarchik? polish. 112 bucks. 2 people, one game. Did it twice accept I got a cold greasy phiily the second game. 15 bucs parking twice. 254 bucks total for the two games. Buxton ran into the fence against Cleveland and wasn't the same the rest of the year. 

I love the Twins as does my wife. We'll follow them on TV and radio. But we won't attend in person again until ownership and management is relaced.

 

[BobAzar]

Im torn, as a STH, I want the team to be good and attendance to be high, BUT I do like it when the lines for food/bathrooms arent long, and the concourses arent jammed packed. 

[Melissa Berman]

20 hours ago, Squirrel said:

A proven winning team. 

[Melissa Berman]

4 minutes ago, BobAzar said:

Im torn, as a STH, I want the team to be good and attendance to be high, BUT I do like it when the lines for food/bathrooms arent long, and the concourses arent jammed packed. 

This is 100% accurate. I went to 56 games with my Twins Pass last season. It was admittedly nice having no lines and an uncrowded concourse. When the Brewers came to town and every single seat was filled, the concourse was unwalkable, and all my usual parking haunts were filled, it was jarring and frustrating to me

Edited December 15, 2022 by Melissa Berman

[Squirrel]

9 minutes ago, Melissa Berman said:

Proven and consistent winning team, I should have said ... :) 

[MarcF]

Correa was a major draw for the Twins last year? Huh? Quite the contrary. He isn't the caliber of player who people pay extra to see. In fact, the Twins had their lowest non-covid year attendance since 1995 at 1.8 million. Pretty pathetic, especially considering they were in first place for a long stretch of the season. Put a competitive team on the field (a winning team would be even nicer), price your product correctly, and the fans will be there. I'll pay extra to see Judge, Otani, Houston even though I detest them, and in most years the Red Sox, but will I attend to see CC? Not a chance. 

[MarcF]

3 minutes ago, MarcF said:

Correa was a major draw for the Twins last year? Huh? Quite the contrary. He isn't the caliber of player who people pay extra to see. In fact, the Twins had their lowest non-covid year attendance since 1995 at 1.8 million. Pretty pathetic, especially considering they were in first place for a long stretch of the season. Put a competitive team on the field (a winning team would be even nicer), price your product correctly, and the fans will be there. I'll pay extra to see Judge, Otani, Houston even though I detest them, and in most years the Red Sox, but will I attend to see CC? Not a chance. 

And I should add that rather than attend Twins games, this past season I bought the MLB.tv package that gave me every game for every team, EXCEPT the Twins, for $120 for the full season. Cheaper than going to just a single game with my wife, and better baseball. I followed Judge, Pujols, Otani, and the National League, too! Now that's a deal. 

[Melissa Berman]

1 minute ago, MarcF said:

Correa was a major draw for the Twins last year? Huh? Quite the contrary. He isn't the caliber of player who people pay extra to see. In fact, the Twins had their lowest non-covid year attendance since 1995 at 1.8 million. Pretty pathetic, especially considering they were in first place for a long stretch of the season. Put a competitive team on the field (a winning team would be even nicer), price your product correctly, and the fans will be there. I'll pay extra to see Judge, Otani, Houston even though I detest them, and in most years the Red Sox, but will I attend to see CC? Not a chance. 

I would say that there was a not insignificant number of people who showed at the beginning of the season for the chance to see Correa in a Twins uniform. A lot of people were really excited about that signing. Attendance was low, but having him on the team didn't hurt things (unless there was a large mass of people who were morally opposed to seeing a "cheater," which I doubt,) Signing Correa would've been a major offseason move for the team that would generate excitement. ("they finally spent money! The team is going in a new direction!") I'm not saying the Twins had to match the Giants' offer though. Instead, the Twins haven't done anything besides signing Vasquez. Not much excitement 

[Tibs]

I had a 20 game season ticket package last year and renewed it for this year. May/June/July when the Twins were in first place Target Field was well under 50% capacity every game. This is when the Twins were winning and people still weren't showing up. This is when the Twins were in first place in the division during summer nights and people still weren't showing up.

Were casual fans not showing up because the Twins were bad in 2021? I love baseball and the Twins so I'll go to games no matter what. I have no idea what drives casual fans to games.

With that said, I think the cost of attendance is way too high. Even during those games in the summer with 20,000 max in attendance, 300 level tickets often times were $20+. Parking is $10-$15. I'm going to be completely honest, last season I was not thrilled with the food selection and quality at Target Field. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places but it was very unimpressive. With that, a basic chicken strips+fries or cheeseburger basket is $15+. Beers are generally $12-$14. A single Bomba Squad cocktail is also at least $15.

Whatever the reason for low attendance is it's sad to see. Target Field is such a nice place for baseball.

[Nick Hanzlik]

I attended 4 games last year. All of which were occurred during a weekend series. I saw Correa once and Buxton zero times. I am a huge Twins fan, have been all my life but I moved to Iowa for work back in 2019 and with driving back to the cities and the total costs involved with attending an MLB game, it was a real bummer not to see those guys. Unless I see Byron consistently on the field in CF (he's the only thing exciting enough), I'll prolly watch from the couch mooching cable info (blackouts are dumb MLB...)

[Melissa Berman]

34 minutes ago, Tibs said:

I had a 20 game season ticket package last year and renewed it for this year. May/June/July when the Twins were in first place Target Field was well under 50% capacity every game. This is when the Twins were winning and people still weren't showing up. This is when the Twins were in first place in the division during summer nights and people still weren't showing up.

Were casual fans not showing up because the Twins were bad in 2021? I love baseball and the Twins so I'll go to games no matter what. I have no idea what drives casual fans to games.

With that said, I think the cost of attendance is way too high. Even during those games in the summer with 20,000 max in attendance, 300 level tickets often times were $20+. Parking is $10-$15. I'm going to be completely honest, last season I was not thrilled with the food selection and quality at Target Field. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places but it was very unimpressive. With that, a basic chicken strips+fries or cheeseburger basket is $15+. Beers are generally $12-$14. A single Bomba Squad cocktail is also at least $15.

Whatever the reason for low attendance is it's sad to see. Target Field is such a nice place for baseball.

I went to 56 games last year with my Twins pass, which was an unbelievable value, especially for the weekend games. At $50/month, tickets usually equated to about $5 (or less) per game, depending on how many games there were in a given month. I agree that the cost of tickets needs to be lowered, especially for the upper deck. Weekend games without a Twins pass are pricy. Just get people in the door and they'll spend on other stuff. I was also surprised how poor attendance was when the Twins were winning. I'm not sure if it was a holdover from 2021 or what. Early season was impacted by cold weather, but no excuses for this beautiful, mid-summer nights. Regardless, I'll be getting the pass again and love spending summer evenings at Target Field. 

You have great feedback and thoughts and the Twins should be doing something to solicit feedback on what they can improve on. 

[theBOMisthebomb]

5 hours ago, Werbellik said:

I'll come to a couple games a year. The Misses and I are 63. We're from up north a ways but currently live in the Northwest Metro.

We went to a Cleveland and KC game last summer. 2 tickets, top of lower deck right field. 40 bucks apiece. A beer, a water, a pretzel, and a cold kamarchik? polish. 112 bucks. 2 people, one game. Did it twice accept I got a cold greasy phiily the second game. 15 bucs parking twice. 254 bucks total for the two games. Buxton ran into the fence against Cleveland and wasn't the same the rest of the year. 

I love the Twins as does my wife. We'll follow them on TV and radio. But we won't attend in person again until ownership and management is relaced.

 

The complaining about cost is a topic that interests me. The $127 inclusive for a night out for you and your wife for an MLB game, parking and food seems rather reasonable from my perspective. You could have spent $20- $30 just going to the cheapest of cheap fast food restaurants. Your ticket cost seems reasonable, though there are decent upper decks seats for probably $10-$15 per ticket less. The food purchases seem a bit excessive if you are so focused on cost and so cost sensitive. You could eat before leaving for the game and then not eat there. You could go to the family concession stands where the food cost is a fraction of what you quote. Buying an overpriced beer and a costly sandwich seems out of character and unnecessary if you are so cost sensitive. You do know you can bring your own food into Target Field, including your own sealed water bottle? It just seems contradictory to me to stomp your feet about cost then splurge on beer and expensive sandwiches. If you think those purchases are part of the ballpark experience, then ok. Why then complain about cost? The $15 parking is okay. You could shave a few dollars possibly, though not worth that effort. 

Again, the costs you quote seem reasonable to me for a full night of entertainment provided by the best baseball players in the world. What did you want the costs to be? I don't know if you're noticed the cost of everything has skyrocketed. You've seen inflation numbers the last couple of years?

[Bigfork Twins Guy]

2 hours ago, theBOMisthebomb said:

The complaining about cost is a topic that interests me. The $127 inclusive for a night out for you and your wife for an MLB game, parking and food seems rather reasonable from my perspective. You could have spent $20- $30 just going to the cheapest of cheap fast food restaurants. Your ticket cost seems reasonable, though there are decent upper decks seats for probably $10-$15 per ticket less. The food purchases seem a bit excessive if you are so focused on cost and so cost sensitive. You could eat before leaving for the game and then not eat there. You could go to the family concession stands where the food cost is a fraction of what you quote. Buying an overpriced beer and a costly sandwich seems out of character and unnecessary if you are so cost sensitive. You do know you can bring your own food into Target Field, including your own sealed water bottle? It just seems contradictory to me to stomp your feet about cost then splurge on beer and expensive sandwiches. If you think those purchases are part of the ballpark experience, then ok. Why then complain about cost? The $15 parking is okay. You could shave a few dollars possibly, though not worth that effort. 

Again, the costs you quote seem reasonable to me for a full night of entertainment provided by the best baseball players in the world. What did you want the costs to be? I don't know if you're noticed the cost of everything has skyrocketed. You've seen inflation numbers the last couple of years?

One other way to save a few bucks is to take light rail in.  We used to live in the southern burbs and drive to a LR station, park there for free, then take the rail in.  No parking costs, no stress of driving down town, and its there waiting for you when you get out of the park.

[DJL44]

3 hours ago, theBOMisthebomb said:

The food purchases seem a bit excessive if you are so focused on cost and so cost sensitive. You could eat before leaving for the game and then not eat there. You could go to the family concession stands where the food cost is a fraction of what you quote. Buying an overpriced beer and a costly sandwich seems out of character and unnecessary if you are so cost sensitive. You do know you can bring your own food into Target Field, including your own sealed water bottle?

Most casual fans do NOT know you can bring in your own food. It is something you can't do at other sporting events. They also either don't know there is a family concession stand or aren't able to walk that far from their seat to get food.