The Twins Are Killing Their Brand, and It's Brutal to Watch

[Original_JB]

3 hours ago, USAFChief said:

3) She took a promotion to work for the Chicago Bears, a larger organization with a larger fanbase and bigger revenues.

4) Ms. Meka Morris perhaps championed the new "M" hats/logo and predicted huge revenue $$$ from it.

[Major League Ready]

Here is an article about NBA coverage of playoff games.  This appears to be speculation but Bally's might get cut out of NBA playoff games.  There are 15 NBA teams that are broadcast locally by Bally's.  All of their contracts are up at the end of this season.  Bally's shelf life is looking shorter and shorter.  Playoff Games

Now I am really curious about what might be brewing for the future broadcasting of all these sports.  All of the leagues collaborating would be incredible but that would be a gigantic undertaking to execute.  

[Taildragger8791]

On top of all the other challenges with getting youth into modern baseball, it's going to be even harder when I can't have the game on in the background for my kids to pick up on. My son is only 5 but is starting to pick up interest in sports and is asking lots of questions about the basketball and football teams he sees on TV. Baseball isn't on his radar and until he can play he won't even understand what it is. Soccer, basketball, and football are prevalent at these young ages, and I hope to get him into golf with me. At some point there won't be any room left to care about another sport.

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

DSP awkward and inappropriate about women? Shocker. I hadn't read that, but predicted it was part of why she left. Twins are stuck decades back in terms of business....

What an absolutely reckless statement. 

[Mike Sixel]

9 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

What an absolutely reckless statement. 

Did you read the quote? 

[bean5302]

3 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Did you read the quote? 

Where you predicted part of the reason she left the Twins was because DSP was awkward and inappropriate about women even though you hadn't read that? That's certainly how I read your comment.

[Mike Sixel]

5 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Where you predicted part of the reason she left the Twins was because DSP was awkward and inappropriate about women even though you hadn't read that? That's certainly how I read your comment.

I read the comment from someone else, that's what I responded to, this part of the article:  

“Meka will rock a dress and some Jordans and be able to sell water to a whale,” says Nicole Jeter West, CEO of brand agency Underdog Ventures. “And she can get away with it,” adds Twins CEO Dave St. Peter, “because she rocks them so well.”

Read that last line.....

[mikelink45]

The Twins have a history of shooting themselves in both feet.  From Calvin and his famous racist remarks that drove Carew out to going into Target field without a top team, to budget ups and downs, to changing radio stations back and forth, to messing up the TV situation.  And those are just cherries picked from the top. 

Last year we won a playoff series - it all seemed so hopeful.  Isn't there a marketing person, a business person in this group that can understand that they are in a sport that needs fan enthusiasm, not confusion.  They need exposure and that is not flashing one good player contract in 10 years,  They need to give us hope and not have us spending our time wondering where the Twins are.  

In the sixties the audience in the Met Stadium were from rural communities, from ND and SD and even WI.  How do they keep in touch?

Very sad, very good and depressing article. 

[bean5302]

3 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

I read the comment from someone else, that's what I responded to, this part of the article:  

“Meka will rock a dress and some Jordans and be able to sell water to a whale,” says Nicole Jeter West, CEO of brand agency Underdog Ventures. “And she can get away with it,” adds Twins CEO Dave St. Peter, “because she rocks them so well.”

Read that last line.....

I read that only I didn't take the reckless leap you did because:
A) I wasn't there.
B) I didn't hear the exchange, tone, inflection.
C) It was a corroboration of a statement by a woman.
D) I don't know about DSP's relationship with Meka.
E) Reckless statements like the one you made are self-centered serving the purpose of signaling your virtue at the cost of possibly unfairly damaging the reputation and life of another human being.

[Mike Sixel]

8 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

I read that only I didn't take the reckless leap you did because:
A) I wasn't there.
B) I didn't hear the exchange, tone, inflection.
C) It was a corroboration of a statement by a woman.
D) I don't know about DSP's relationship with Meka.
E) Reckless statements like the one you made are self-centered serving the purpose of signaling your virtue at the cost of possibly unfairly damaging the reputation and life of another human being.

Fair. We disagree on whether that comment is appropriate or not. I think it isn't appropriate, ever, in a work place. Ever.

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

Very accurate and much needed article Nick.  Thanks for submitting it and as always, I appreciate all of you who submit articles for not being homers.

I think this is a big miss by the franchise and it definitely is not going well.  I also subscribe to the Strib and let me tell you the comments on the BSN article on that site are like 95% negative with lots of comments stating that they are done with the Twins.  The team is losing fans and the longer that folks are locked out of telecasts, the more other activities that they find and may, and probably, never return.

This kind of reminds me of the "Bud Light" debacle.  They have NEVER gotten market share back that they lost due to brand deterioration.  The only thing I will say about Bud, is that they have tried very hard to apologize and bring back their customers.  So far, I've not seen that with the Twins and that is where I think they are making a big mistake.

It's a very tough situation for them and I do get that it is not 100% their doing, but they need to do SOMETHING to show that they care about their fans or this will continue to go south.

I think this part I bolded/underlined is a really important part of all this. We can rag on them for their "in the moment" comments when asked questions and how people handled that, but their response to even more customers losing access to the product was, as Nick described, a shoulder shrug. At least act like you care here. You had a terrible offseason in terms of PR, and put your foot in your mouth over and over. You over-promised and under-delivered enormously. Is there nobody in the Twins organization with any kind of pull that said "we really need to go over the top with our response to this Comcast/Diamond Sports situation. Apologize like we kicked their dogs even though there's nothing we could do about this at this particular moment?"

Making some PR mistakes from time to time is to be expected when you're in live interviews. Getting every PR situation wrong for an entire offseason is not to be expected. And then getting the planned, prepared, and gone over statement wrong after all that is mind-blowing.

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

If all of the leagues are in peril, it’s quite possible there could be collaboration between the leagues.  That solution would likely be far better for fans but that sort of thing does not come together in a short period of time.

ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. are putting together a juggernaut sports streaming app - The Verge

Quote

Warner Bros. Discovery is preparing to launch a streaming service in partnership with ESPN / Disney and Fox Sports, as reported earlier by CNBC and Sports Business Journal. All three companies have agreed in principle to launch an as-yet-unnamed standalone app, of which they all share one-third ownership, this fall that streams a range of leagues and sports.

It is poised to have sports networks including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNews, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, and truTV. The new service will air games from the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL), along with NASCAR, PGA Tour Golf, Grand Slam Tennis, and more. Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max users will also get the option to bundle the new service.

 

[wabene]

4 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Let me help the masses out here.

Gee thanks Master.

 

4 hours ago, bean5302 said:

This whole year looks like a housecleaning is being set up to me. Dave St. Peter. Derek Falvey. They're both undoubtedly on the hottest of hot seats.

You keep saying this, but what about the Twins history under the Pohlad family leads you to believe it? Falvey and crew have much better results than their predecessors who kept their jobs through TSF and multiple 90 plus loss seasons.

[jorgenswest]

I have a few wonders from the business side.

• Whenever a team makes the playoffs a big push for those playoff tickets is to commit to a season or partial season ticket package for the next year. Those sales are a big part of the boost in that ticket put base. How did those future sales go during last year’s playoff run? Did the fans respond and support the team through buying ticket plans for 2024? Were disappointing future ticket sales one of the factors in reducing the budget?
• I have seen sources where the Twins rank 29th in average ticket price or average price for a family of 4. Only the Marlins ranked below them in generating less revenue per ticket. These pages from Statista and Moneygeek are the sources. Moneygeek listed their methodology using data from Seatgeek. I needed an account to see Statista’s source and I chose not to make an account. Their data may also come from seatgeek. Is the rank of 29 close to accurate? 

Generating money through ticket sales as well as through media rights has to be a big part of St. Peter’s responsibility. It seems as if he has failed on both.

 

[Rod Carews Birthday]

16 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. are putting together a juggernaut sports streaming app - The Verge

 

Well, that could be cool.  They certainly have the bandwidth, the funds, and the name recognition to be successful.  Or will they price it so high that it isn't very accessible.  Time will tell.

[Jocko87]

17 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Typically this level of executives in bigger organizations don't stop at this level job. 

Here's one study:

https://www.gong.io/blog/vp-sales-average-tenure/#:~:text=The VP of Sales' average,you're committed to making.

 

I doubt she walked into a better job if she got fired.

EVP and chief revenue officer is a much different role than a VP of sales. The early hopping isn't all that concerning as it is more of the "sales executive" role and there is nothing executive about it.

VP of sales is generally a VP in title only. They get these titles as it presents better to clients. Rank wise, they are somewhere in the senior manager or director level at most companies and not officers of the company. The jump to SVP (Levine) is huge. The jump to EVP (Falvey) is huge again. She would have been an official officer of the company and represent a significant part of the executive group. Her departure is a big deal.

Sales people have always been the most notorious job hoppers.  It's part of the territory. It's the short stints in leadership roles that I'm wondering about.

[purplesoldier4u]

One name: Dave St. Peter

[purplesoldier4u]

My buddy, Rob, owns a mid-size tech firm and he has had such an unpleasant interaction with DSP that he canceled his corporate suite. Also, if anybody recalls how the guides were treated when the All Star games was here, they would have nore insight into DSP too. He treated those people like crap and most of them were longtime fans, tickets holders and seniors. The other stuff, I have no idea about, but as a former STH, he always seemed like a self-serving and condescending prick to me.

[DocBauer]

Living in Nebraska...as stated in a previous post or two...I'm not affected by this situation. But that doesn't mean it doesn't concern or frustrate me as well. I'm literally watching  my life long ML team destroy it's brand and reputation! What's so damn frustrating to me is how ownership has largely seemed to do "right" before this fiasco. 

In the community, from what I read, they've been very active over the years with various charities and organizations. When the pandemic shut so many things down, they were amongst the first 2 or 3 teams to announce they would not only avoid any layoffs within the Twins FO, but would also pay all milb players and staffers. They've invested in scouting and development and complexes in Florida and Latin America. They've consistently made upgrades to the "Target Field" experience for fans. Current and former players and coaches have raved how they and their families have been treated by the FO and ownership. I don't recall the comments made by Joe Pohlad concerning future expansion of the payroll, but I do know they hadn't cut payroll until this season, and in fact had raised it yearly for the past several seasons.

So what on earth has happened, virtually overnight, to create this HUGE mess?

We've heard grumblings for some time about Bally and the agreement the Twins had with them that restricted any further growth of revenue through streaming and the such. They KNEW when their contract was up! They had TIME to look for and examine all avenues for 2024 and future growth! 

Even if you suspected you MIGHT have to lower payroll, you wait until the warm, fuzzy, glowing feelings of reaching the playoffs and actually WINNING have faded a bit. It's almost akin to Christmas and receiving a present you wanted only to be told moments later your goldfish died. Not only was it the wrong time to make said announcement, but if there was any CHANCE of re-upping with Bally, then they should have not only said nothing at the time, but should have maybe hedged their bets a little and mad the decision to either not cut payroll for 2024...coming off a great season...or expect a smaller cut in their minds to hedge their bets on the unknown. What's even MORE frustrating is they SOMEHOW didn't know that the entire deal was still CONTINGENT on an agreement between Bally/Diamond and Comcast??? WTH?

Alienate the fans. Mislead the fans. And then eliminate the fans that you have.

That's the 3 things that ownership has accomplished this offseason. 

Just exactly who is running what up in those offices? By all accounts DSP is a salt of the earth guy who's done a lot for the Twins over the years. But lack of growth in earning opportunities and some very bad public statements makes me wonder if it's time to just move on for someone more in touch with today's fans and market place who can be creative and inventive going forward. Ultimately, does the TV/streaming fiasco lie at Joe's feet, or did the "family" intervene and override forward thinking for the future of the organization for one last payday?

6 months. That's all it took to virtually destroy all good will of a franchise and fan base riding high and looking forward to 2024 and the future. SOMEONE upstairs had better take a really good, long, hard, and honest look in the mirror when this season is done, realize and admit mistakes, and then take steps to rectify the situation going forward. And if it's not all on Joe's plate, then he needs to step forward as the man in charge and take control.

It may take 2-3 years to undo what's been done in the past 6 months, but that journey begins by reflection, admittance, and then forward thinking to undo the damage. 

 

[Jocko87]

31 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

 

Generating money through ticket sales as well as through media rights has to be a big part of St. Peter’s responsibility. It seems as if he has failed on both.

 

But everything falls under him, and he has EVPs and whatnot to execute on it. I don't doubt he is heavily involved but from the Forbes article "her first order of business is to land a uniform sponsorship deal".  Nothing on the sleeves yet.

It goes on to mention the next thing is the TV thing imploding. Highly possible the pain of the TV crap would make me look at an NFL option too as the chief revenue officer. Like how do you want me to make revenue when I can't get on TV in Iowa? 

[CCHOF5yearstoolate]

6 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Rage rather than reasons in here. Dave St. Peter needs a different role. He's been talking about his inability to improve attendance and consistently missing the mark on expectations for 5 years now. 

Let me help the masses out here. Joe Pohlad got hamstrung this past offseason. When nobody bought seasons after the playoff run last year and the Twins lost money for the 3rd of 4 years, the rest of the family reigned him in. That's what happened if you read between the lines. The re-branding Joe oversaw was a colossal failure. The new jerseys feel/look like something you'd get for $20 at TJ Maxx. The new logo inspires most people to think "Marlins" or "Mariners," and the family decided to stick by Dave St. Peter despite him being inept at discovering what fans want now for the better part of a decade, and ownership was rewarded with this catastrophic failure in the TV deal. Could a TV deal have possibly been worse? I'd argue no. It was the worst imaginable outcome for the Twins. A combination of Joe Pohlad and Dave St. Peter has been devastating. No longer are fans apathetic to the Twins, they're now seriously pissed off. As Joe Pohlad is a "brand" guy, you have to expect he was involved in the shifting away from Dick Bremer, but with the expectation Dave St. Peter would at least be able to get some sort of non-catastrophically stupid TV deal done so the Twins might be seen and appeal to a wider audience. Nope. When DSP flopped at his job yet again, the risky and off-putting move probably initiated by Pohlad was exposed to a worse case scenario. Compounding that, ownership then reigned Joe in. It's a mess, and the dwindling fanbase that has supported the team is taking it in the face.

When it comes to the Twins' payroll, it's fine. $130MM is fine for a mid-market team. The team's been losing money and has spent $300MM over the prior 2 years, but revenues have not covered the expenditures. This whole year looks like a housecleaning is being set up to me. Dave St. Peter. Derek Falvey. They're both undoubtedly on the hottest of hot seats.

Did Joe Pohlad get hamstrung or is he the whipping boy?

Gotta be honest, I didn't expect anyone not employed by the Twins to blame the fans for their money "problems" and defend the greedy family.

Sure are a lot of assumptions here in favor of the Pohlads. And I highly doubt Falvey is on the hot seat. 

[Fire Dan Gladden]

Look, everybody is overanalyzing this.  It comes down to a few basic points:
1) The Twins took the cash from Ballys knowing all of this was possible, even likely.
2) They did this as other teams worked with MLB for less revenue today, but a more optimistic financial future and to keep games on television.
3) This move, in conjunction with the other financial decisions made this winter, show that this ownership group has zero regard for the fans and 100% only cares about dollars.

There were no mistakes here.  Nothing got missed.  This was part of the accepted risk and tactical decisions of ownership.

For comparison, look at Glen Taylor and the Timberwolves.  For all his faults, he has never balked at spending money to improve the on-court product. He halted the sale of the Wolves to A-Rod amidst reports A-Rod was going to gut the team to save money.  He tries to win and appease the fans while also making money, either through cash flow or increased value of the team.

[Eris]

The TV rights dispute between Bally and Comcast was covered in the Wall Street Journal last week. The issue is that Bally wants Comcast to charge all their cable subscribers while Comcast wants to offer a tier of service so that only subscribers to the Twins channel would pay  

Bally wants the current/ past model of charging every cable customer as it generates the most revenue for Bally. Comcast dislikes this model as many customers are charged for services they don’t use and this encourages cord cutting. 
 

Other commenters above have indicated that Comcast is also a competitor to Bally and their may be other motives besides this years revenue/profit in the dispute. 

[CCHOF5yearstoolate]

2 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

For comparison, look at Glen Taylor and the Timberwolves.  For all his faults, he has never balked at spending money to improve the on-court product. He halted the sale of the Wolves to A-Rod amidst reports A-Rod was going to gut the team to save money.  He tries to win and appease the fans while also making money, either through cash flow or increased value of the team.

This is not an accurate characterization of the Glen Taylor A-rod/Lore situation. He balked at spending money on the Wolves for nearly 20 years until they finally lucked into a couple of #1 overall picks.

A-Rod & Lore brought in Tim Connelly who brought in Rudy and completely changed the course of this franchise. Glen Taylor halted the sale because the franchise is worth a billion more than it was when they started the sale - because of the Connelly hire. He's doing this purely for the money. 

That "report" about them "gutting the team" is pure propaganda from Glen - something he's always done. In their documents to prove they are ready to own a team, they submitted multiple budgets for multiple scenarios depending on how well the team did this year. Glen selectively chose the worst case scenario and broadcast that as if that was their main plan, when it was not. Plenty of reporting from the Wolves beat that confirms all of this.

Glen has been more hated than the Pohlads for decades, it's kind of crazy to see an obvious bit of propaganda actually change the perception of him overnight. 

[D.C Twins]

Best article you have ever written Nick and I have read most to include those going back before TD. 

[D.C Twins]

Great thing about capitalism is that nepotism is eventually costly... even if it takes a few generations. 

Obviously Pohlad would not be the best choice for his current role if it was selected by merit...  His performance is predictable and I for one am not surprised in the least bit

 

[Vanimal46]

1 hour ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

This is not an accurate characterization of the Glen Taylor A-rod/Lore situation. He balked at spending money on the Wolves for nearly 20 years until they finally lucked into a couple of #1 overall picks.

A-Rod & Lore brought in Tim Connelly who brought in Rudy and completely changed the course of this franchise. Glen Taylor halted the sale because the franchise is worth a billion more than it was when they started the sale - because of the Connelly hire. He's doing this purely for the money. 

That "report" about them "gutting the team" is pure propaganda from Glen - something he's always done. In their documents to prove they are ready to own a team, they submitted multiple budgets for multiple scenarios depending on how well the team did this year. Glen selectively chose the worst case scenario and broadcast that as if that was their main plan, when it was not. Plenty of reporting from the Wolves beat that confirms all of this.

Glen has been more hated than the Pohlads for decades, it's kind of crazy to see an obvious bit of propaganda actually change the perception of him overnight. 

Yeah, Glen Taylor getting credit for anything is wild. He’s ran the organization into the ground for 20 years before striking gold with Anthony Edwards. Their multi-year ownership transition is something we’ve never seen in any sport before. Now that Taylor got cold feet because the team is finally great, it’ll never happen again. 

[Pat]

Since the Twins are a private business and not publicly owned or traded, there really is no way of knowing if they are really making or losing money beyond their claims which could be self serving to fulfill a narrative that they wish to create,  Anyone who owns and runs their own business knows that there are real losses and then there are "paper" losses which are used to drive down income/profits. All the farmers who live around me never turn a "real' profit at the end of the year, yet they manage to drive $80,000 four wheel drive pickups and spend the winter in Florida.  The same principle applies to the Twins.

[CCHOF5yearstoolate]

23 minutes ago, Pat said:

Since the Twins are a private business and not publicly owned or traded, there really is no way of knowing if they are really making or losing money beyond their claims which could be self serving to fulfill a narrative that they wish to create,  Anyone who owns and runs their own business knows that there are real losses and then there are "paper" losses which are used to drive down income/profits. All the farmers who live around me never turn a "real' profit at the end of the year, yet they manage to drive $80,000 four wheel drive pickups and spend the winter in Florida.  The same principle applies to the Twins.

My first job out of college included participation on my team's budget. I "budgeted" the utilities so I just reported the numbers, but our monthly meetings consisted of 6 presentations and then the site manager would ask the inventory manager if he could find X amount of money to "get out of inventory" to make the books look good. Every single month.

Never believe a business is telling the truth with their accounting. 

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, Pat said:

Since the Twins are a private business and not publicly owned or traded, there really is no way of knowing if they are really making or losing money beyond their claims which could be self serving to fulfill a narrative that they wish to create,  Anyone who owns and runs their own business knows that there are real losses and then there are "paper" losses which are used to drive down income/profits. All the farmers who live around me never turn a "real' profit at the end of the year, yet they manage to drive $80,000 four wheel drive pickups and spend the winter in Florida.  The same principle applies to the Twins.

Given sports teams always sell for massive gains, they aren't losing money. Unless they are the only major US sports team ever to do so.