Three Ways The Twins Can Win Fans Back After Fumbling the TV Situation

[jkcarew]

We’ll complain they chose revenue over ‘availability’, but at the same time, we’ll complain that payroll is too low.

Was it the best decision long-term? I don’t know. Any decision that leads to more winning and less losing is the best short, medium and long-term decision. Beyond that, agree that anything to get kids (and young adults) hooked would really help.
 

I don’t think the dilemma is getting better anytime soon for all but a handful of franchises. Cable was the cash cow, and it’s dying. And the streaming businesses aren’t breaking their banks to get baseball rights the way the cable services did.

[D.C Twins]

When I was young... many moons ago... there were 'knot hole days' (reference to watching through a hole in the wood fence for you young ones) which allowed kids into the park for next-to-nothing (less than 5 bucks). 

This worked well back then to get kids and families to the park... and then money is made when the inevitable 'I WANT the ICECREAM in the mini-batting helmet' whining kicks in about the 4th inning :) 

[darin617]

How to "win fans back"

1. Win games.

2. See #1

3. See #1

[DJL44]

7 hours ago, stringer bell said:

Reduce ticket prices. I'm serious about this. For the games that look like they might draw less than 20,000 offer tickets for the nether regions at reduced prices, sort of like the Knothole Gang games of old. 

Instead of offering knothole tickets (which is how I always saw a game as a kid) they decided shutting down the upper deck entirely was the better move.

[ashbury]

9 hours ago, Lou Hennessy said:

I know this because I’ve had countless people come to me – a lowly scribe – asking when the Twins are going to run something like that again because it was the only way they went to a handful of games last year.

Countless?  The promotion didn't convert them to repeat customers at regular prices, at all? 

Then shhhhhhh, don't tell Dave St. Peter, because this is the best way to make sure they never run another promotion again.

[Karbo]

Have all day games "senior days" like 1/2 price for seniors and couple that with all kids under 10 get $5 tickets. I'd bring the grandkids in a few times with that deal, and I bet it would cost at least another $50 per kid for concessions.

[I Never Bet On Sports]

Broadcasting more spring training games (ideally for free) could be a way to generate fan interest for the upcoming season and drive both BSN cable subscriptions and Twins ticket sales. I don't understand why the Twins don't do more here. This season the Twins will have only 8 spring training games on BSN, and 3 of those will be the other team's broadcast, not ours. So five games where you will get Twins coverage. Of those, only 3 will be by our new broadcast team with the other two by our radio team (Kris Atteberry/Dan Gladden on TV).

The first broadcast isn't until March 12th - THAT IS GAME NUMBER NINETEEN OF SPRING TRAINING. For comparison, the Red Sox will have 22 on their network, the Yankees 15, and the Padres (who were dropped by Diamond last year and are starting their own streaming network) will stream 25 spring training games. this year. 

[old nurse]

If the fans were loyal they would be coming out to games regardless  of other factors. The casual fan comes out with winning, disappears when they don’t.  

Baseball may have seen the implosion of RSNs but did not expect it this soon. Big market teams had golden contracts, there was no real need for changes anytime soon

las I saw the Twins wee on of the leas expensive teams by average ticket price. Price discounts are not the answer for long term stability. 

[Fezig]

Free games for kids is a great idea.

The only problem is parents and grandparents who miss the way baseball was played are going to still avoid going to games because watching your home team strike out a third of the time isn't fun. Not to mention a starting pitcher having a "good" start after only throwing 4 innings isn't something old school baseball fans appreciate.

[JD-TWINS]

19 hours ago, IaBeanCounter said:

Will Amazon be streaming some of the Twins games?  They put $115 million into Diamond to get it out of bankruptcy.  

 

I just got my Reminder Invoice for $149 for my MLB subscription via Amazon Prime. I pay the total at end of February and get essentially every game in Majors all year. Paying for Prime monthly was already a choice for Series/Movies/etc. The only blackouts I had last year were 2-3 Friday night games that Apple TV contracted for this specific games.

I live in Cincinnati & can’t get to Target field more than every other year for a single game. I watch 125 games per year minimum the last 2 years. The coverage gives a choice of home or visitor broadcast team so you can switch to get the opposition’s point of view. Can listen to local Twins broadcast team for every game. They have the post-game coverage as well.

$.92/game for 162 games. Sweet deal sitting in Ohio or in my home town of Red Wing.

This is not just the Twin’s games it’s EVERY game in MLB, every day.

[JD-TWINS]

12 hours ago, darin617 said:

How to "win fans back"

1. Win games.

2. See #1

3. See #1

Exactly - just win baby!!

Watch parties???? Beer sales outside Park??? - maybe in my 20’s.

Kids for free?? Maybe every Wednesday night  & Sunday afternoon games - a nice compromise and still 25-30 games for the fans. Creates an alternative or awareness for those “non-kid friendly” fans.

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, I Never Bet On Sports said:

Broadcasting more spring training games (ideally for free) could be a way to generate fan interest for the upcoming season and drive both BSN cable subscriptions and Twins ticket sales. I don't understand why the Twins don't do more here. This season the Twins will have only 8 spring training games on BSN, and 3 of those will be the other team's broadcast, not ours. So five games where you will get Twins coverage. Of those, only 3 will be by our new broadcast team with the other two by our radio team (Kris Atteberry/Dan Gladden on TV).

The first broadcast isn't until March 12th - THAT IS GAME NUMBER NINETEEN OF SPRING TRAINING. For comparison, the Red Sox will have 22 on their network, the Yankees 15, and the Padres (who were dropped by Diamond last year and are starting their own streaming network) will stream 25 spring training games. this year. 

Tried not to respond, but why are there complaints about Spring Training games? Seems like a deep dive to be bitter. Does anybody really want to watch more than a handful of an inning or three of a Spring Training game? To each his own, I guess.

[JD-TWINS]

2 hours ago, Karbo said:

Have all day games "senior days" like 1/2 price for seniors and couple that with all kids under 10 get $5 tickets. I'd bring the grandkids in a few times with that deal, and I bet it would cost at least another $50 per kid for concessions.

Seems if the group has $50/kid to spend on concessions the ticket cost is probably a non-issue.

Ticket deals are always a fun way to generate interest - Senior Day - Kid’s Day…..all good stuff.

[JD-TWINS]

19 hours ago, Nashvilletwin said:

The #1 (and only truly dial moving ) way to “win back” Twins fans:

WIN!

*The team will probably draw 1.5MM fans or so anyway. If they want 2MM, they need a legitimate AL pennant contending team out of the gate.  All the other strategies are just edge nippers.

I just looked and found 24,300 and change per game in ‘23 at Target Field. It came out to nearly 1,975,000 total. Is there really a chance they go back to 1,500,000 unless Lopez & Lewis go down in May for the year?

Win!

To me, with a better May - June on the field, & they have an occasional promotion for tickets, they are nearly a lock for 2.1  million plus……a 8-10% increase in attendance. 

[TwinkieFan4life]

Not really a good way to work around the problem of people not being able to watch games.  Especially the 18-40 demographic (likely to lean into streaming).  Sold their future for a present payday.  

[Karbo]

1 hour ago, JD-TWINS said:

Seems if the group has $50/kid to spend on concessions the ticket cost is probably a non-issue.

Ticket deals are always a fun way to generate interest - Senior Day - Kid’s Day…..all good stuff.

As a senior living on SS $50 is a lot!

[lukeduke1980]

21 hours ago, TJ CPA said:

Hate to break bad news but I'm pretty sure that the Bally subscription does not include Twins. 

From their website.

This is the thing I don't understand.  Feels like it should have been a must have in the deal.

[Morneau for Gov]

I find myself incredibly negative about the Twins this offseason. They just had a brilliant season led by hopeful, star, young talent and have taken this foundation and cra??ed all over it allowing some of its best players to leave while cutting payroll and signing waiver wire fodder. Their broadcasts remain on an incredibly overpriced, dying medium. So, I’m not spending wasteful dollars propping up a bloated, failed cable industry to watch a gutted product…that should have been on the verge of a new wave led by young stars AND aging stars. 
It looks like very poor short term management to me. Or, they just don’t really value the fan experience. 

[Mike_tacos]

22 hours ago, TJ CPA said:

Damn. Haha. Sorry, thought I was gonna be able to provide some good news on the subject. I guess I will continue to mooch off of friends who pay for Ballys through a cable subscription. Haha

[darin617]

If Amazon takes over next year I would expect MLB part would be an add-on meaning you would have to pay another $15-20 a month for coverage. 

It would make no sense to Amazon to just add MLB as part of the Prime package. If it stayed at $149 they wouldn't gain anything from current subscribers. All they would gain is new subscribers that would go month to month unless Amazon got NHL or NBA as well. 

Unless Prime leaps to $189 or more it wouldn't make sense for them to have it as part of Prime. Hence the add-on fee.

[JD-TWINS]

8 hours ago, Karbo said:

As a senior living on SS $50 is a lot!

Not trying to diminish the value of $50. My point is how does one justify spending $50 on each child brought to a game? ……..if that’s not an issue, it seems the tickets wouldn’t be either. Spending more than $20-$25 per child seems like quite a bit to me.

[The Mad King]

Are all games available on the MLB app? 

[Karbo]

10 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Not trying to diminish the value of $50. My point is how does one justify spending $50 on each child brought to a game? ……..if that’s not an issue, it seems the tickets wouldn’t be either. Spending more than $20-$25 per child seems like quite a bit to me.

Are you a grandparent? On the few times I can take one of my grandkids out I want to spoil them a bit. The advantage of being Gramps is I can spoil them and send them back home. LOL

[USAFChief]

4 hours ago, Karbo said:

Are you a grandparent? On the few times I can take one of my grandkids out I want to spoil them a bit. The advantage of being Gramps is I can spoil them and send them back home. LOL

I'm a grandparent.

My question: if you're spoiling the grandkids somewhere else, why not spoil them at a Twins game? 

And some friendly advice: the family section concession stands in CF. You don't need to spend $50 per kid. $10 will do it. Also, buy one souvenir plastic soda cup...free refills FOR THE ENTIRE SEASON at every concession stand in the stadium. The grandkids can share one, and drink to their heart's content. 

 

[Heiny]

To me, this articles comments have taken on two related but separate topics.  1. Why is baseball losing its fan base gradually over the years.  And 2.  How to win back fans after a bad, for the majority of the fans, tv deal.  1.  When I was young in the 60's and 70's,  baseball was life for most boys at least in small Minnesota towns.  Now in my town and in many small towns I drive through, there are more soccer fields than baseball diamonds.  Why is that?  It baffles me.  2.  If you want to win back fans through tv, the answer is very very simple.  Make baseball games on tv accessible to as many homes as possible at a reasonable cost.  It's just that simple.  I don't see that happening.  With the technology of this day,  anybody should be able to watch any game they want from anywhere they want.  And to relate these two topics,  you will slowly but gradually increase the interest in the game once again.  I am lucky enough to be able to still subscribe to a cable network that still has Bally but the package price for internet and cable channels is over $200 per month.  Seems like an unreasonable cost to me.  Yes I can afford it.  But many families who are young with growing children cannot.  These are the families that need to be catered to, to grow interest.

[Karbo]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

I'm a grandparent.

My question: if you're spoiling the grandkids somewhere else, why not spoil them at a Twins game? 

And some friendly advice: the family section concession stands in CF. You don't need to spend $50 per kid. $10 will do it. Also, buy one souvenir plastic soda cup...free refills FOR THE ENTIRE SEASON at every concession stand in the stadium. The grandkids can share one, and drink to their heart's content. 

 

Quite honestly, I can't afford to take them to the game. between prices of tickets and parking, not to mention gas to drive the 80 miles each way, it just gets a bit too expensive. I save up all summer for the county fair (those rides are crazy expensive) and Christmas presents, there just isn't much left over. I don't know how some of the retirees survive on the little we get from SS.

[Werbellik]

Just got my cable bill last week. It went up 11 bucks. Charter Spectrum. Cooncidence?

[CrusherDoescher]

On 2/16/2024 at 12:38 PM, Craig Arko said:

These sound like great PR moves. As always, it depends on the economics.

I’d go to a watch party once in a while.

All great ideas but Twins are only interested in the all mighty Dollar! Plus their political takes. The right field sign that states End Racism. Just what we need at a ballpark, fans go to games to getaway from that kind of crap! But the Twins do not care about their fans or their thoughts!! Look how they treated Bert and just recently Dick. Fan favorites. 🖕Fans have spoken. Check attendance figures.

[IaBeanCounter]

On 2/17/2024 at 8:23 AM, JD-TWINS said:

I just got my Reminder Invoice for $149 for my MLB subscription via Amazon Prime. I pay the total at end of February and get essentially every game in Majors all year. Paying for Prime monthly was already a choice for Series/Movies/etc. The only blackouts I had last year were 2-3 Friday night games that Apple TV contracted for this specific games.

I live in Cincinnati & can’t get to Target field more than every other year for a single game. I watch 125 games per year minimum the last 2 years. The coverage gives a choice of home or visitor broadcast team so you can switch to get the opposition’s point of view. Can listen to local Twins broadcast team for every game. They have the post-game coverage as well.

$.92/game for 162 games. Sweet deal sitting in Ohio or in my home town of Red Wing.

This is not just the Twin’s games it’s EVERY game in MLB, every day.

It is my understanding that the MLB blackout rules exist to protect the RSN.  Iowa is blacked out for the Twins, Royals, White Sox, Cubs, Cards and Brewers.   Did they change the blackout rules so that Amazon can stream all MLB games?  TIA