Phoenix Suns Owners Are Interested In Purchasing Minnesota Twins

[Jocko87]

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Not so excited as the rest of the posts.  If they buy us, what is their interest in MN? 

 

1 hour ago, Jocko87 said:

The Minnesota Twins.

Less glib answer, listen to the interview.  He states he wanted to end up in the midwest and is really big on going where the opportunity is.  A team for sale is the midwest would obviously catch his attention.

[PDX Twin]

33 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

The good news is that the Twins name does not work in very many locations.

Unlike, say, the Lakers? There are about as many players on the court as lakes in southern California...

[Parfigliano]

40 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

The good news is that the Twins name does not work in very many locations.

Pierre-Ft Pierre SD Twins

[Jocko87]

He does love Nashville, has one of his offices there... 🤷‍♂️

Hey, where's that lease again?

[Quicksloth]

5 hours ago, Brandon said:

I’ve met Matt Ishbia a few times.  He’s a positive high energy person.  Was the last man on the bench in college ball.  Knows how to win and has the Pohlads loyalty/ family vibe to the workplace.  You will like him as the owner only concern is he is based out of Detroit.  Ishbia took a small mortgage wholesaler and made them in some respects the largest lender in the Nation.  He runs his company off of 6 principles. I don’t remember them but thumbs for I’m responsible and people are your biggest resource.  I’m going to go visit his company again soon. Hopefully in January.  Let me know if you want me to ask any questions 

Is one of the 6 principles to underhandedly create partnerships within the industry that takes advantage of misrepresented relationships in order to drive business to his company and disregard the interest of the consumer? Seems like his willingness to push past ethical business practices is a red flag for being a good ownership group. Like in European soccer, don't blindly welcome the promise of rich financing to partner with ethically dubious ownership (Chelsea and the Russian oligarch Abramovich -- Man City, PSG, and Newcastle with nation states of dubious human rights records). These things can end badly for the team, or put your own fandom in a compromising position.
https://www.pablo.show/p/how-this-nba-owner-fleeced-america

[Mike Sixel]

3 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Not so excited as the rest of the posts.  If they buy us, what is their interest in MN? 

Same as the Wilfs, ownership of a sports team with a good stadium?

[Cap'n Piranha]

3 hours ago, NYCTK said:

Agreed mostly. The large uproar amongst the fans against the  Pohalds wasn't really overwhelming until they "right sized" their business right when modest investment would have paid huge dividends, showing their true colors. 

No one should really try to spend like the NY or LA franchises. Everyone's mostly aware and OK with the market discrepancies existent in the world. But as long as the owner WANTS to win and is willing to invest in it, it's evident to the fans. 

That being said, these guys could try to spend like the big boys and honestly isn't a terrible business venture, trying to build a Midwest dynasty to turn a 1.5 B asset into the Cardinals (currently 2.5 B). There's real investment opportunity there if you actually build a winner. 

Or the Pohlads rightsized their investment right when they lost about $50M in annual revenue in only 2 years.

[Fire Dan Gladden]

Here is a reason to be optimistic about these two potentially coming in as owners:

Last year the Phoenix Suns paid more in luxury tax penalties than the entire Twins payroll.

They get it.  Keep your fingers crossed.

[IndianaTwin]

14 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Relax. I'm on board as a silent partner and, don't wanna brag, but I bring another 2 or 3 thousand liquid cash to the table.

Provided, of course, Mrs Chief doesn't catch wind of this. 

Chief silent anything? I doubt it. 

[Otaknam]

15 hours ago, PseudoSABR said:

Not sure if it will be a good thing for them to be largely absentee, as I believe they reside in the Phx area.  Even with private jets, a 162 flights a year is a lot; or if they do the snow bird thing, that won't be for the whole season given the NBA playoff/MLB overlap in early summer.

I think the Ishibia boys could afford to purchase a lovely Twin Cities lake home or downtown penthouse to escape the Phoenix heat during the summer.

[mikelink45]

10 hours ago, PDX Twin said:

Unlike, say, the Lakers? There are about as many players on the court as lakes in southern California...

As someone who went to Lakers games as a boy I am still bitter about them stealing both our team and our name.

[mikelink45]

10 hours ago, Parfigliano said:

Pierre-Ft Pierre SD Twins

I forgot how desperate they are to get a major league team.

[stringer bell]

Beware the White Knight. I am old enough to remember how excited fans were that Carl Pohlad would take over for "cheapskate" Calvin Griffith. 

If the Pohlads are really serious about selling (I guess they are) the payroll reductions make sense. Selling a team with a "right sized" payroll would increase it's worth wouldn't it? Also, the new owner would be granted good will if he then increased payroll I would suppose. 

It does appear the brothers are sports enthusiasts rather than only cold-blooded investors. To me, it is a mixed blessing. They would probably be more hands on, but hands on doesn't mean effective. 

If we are looking only at payroll, the Ishbias seem likely to try to hold the line. 

[old nurse]

When the Pohlads bought the team it was mentioned that they could depreciate the players contracts that were signed. But not the future contracts, If this is so locking up the young core wold become a priority.. Even going over the budget could return value in the sale 

[Craig Arko]

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

Beware the White Knight. I am old enough to remember how excited fans were that Carl Pohlad would take over for "cheapskate" Calvin Griffith. 

If the Pohlads are really serious about selling (I guess they are) the payroll reductions make sense. Selling a team with a "right sized" payroll would increase it's worth wouldn't it? Also, the new owner would be granted good will if he then increased payroll I would suppose. 

It does appear the brothers are sports enthusiasts rather than only cold-blooded investors. To me, it is a mixed blessing. They would probably be more hands on, but hands on doesn't mean effective. 

If we are looking only at payroll, the Ishbias seem likely to try to hold the line. 

Yeah, there is a ‘be careful what you wish for’ vibe here, isn’t there?

[Major League Ready]

59 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

Beware the White Knight. I am old enough to remember how excited fans were that Carl Pohlad would take over for "cheapskate" Calvin Griffith. 

I really like the idea of owners that are sports fans.  It just seems reasonable to believe they would be more obsessed with winning than the Pohlads and I think we likely see a slightly higher payroll.  Will this mean considerably bigger payroll?  I doubt it.  If the Statista estimates are close the Twins were generally in the $25-30M range in profit and I seriously doubt they will run a break-even business.

Private equity guys understand business models and competitive landscapes.  They are going to understand spending an extra $20M is a really poor solution to overcoming a $100M or $200M or $300M disparity in revenue.  I would look for them to be very focused on any a variety of strategies to build a winner.

[NYCTK]

1 minute ago, Craig Arko said:

Yeah, there is a ‘be careful what you wish for’ vibe here, isn’t there?

No. This is basically best case scenario. 

[USAFChief]

14 hours ago, USNMCPO said:

Chief's wives always know!

Truer words have never been spoken, Master Chief. 

I wonder how many times I'll need to learn that lesson.

[USAFChief]

16 hours ago, howeda7 said:

Manny Margot's days as a Twin may not be over with that kind of dough to throw around...

You watch your language, sonny!

[NYCTK]

10 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

I really like the idea of owners that are sports fans.  It just seems reasonable to believe they would be more obsessed with winning than the Pohlads and I think we likely see a slightly higher payroll.  Will this mean considerably bigger payroll?  I doubt it.  If the Statista estimates are close the Twins were generally in the $25-30M range in profit and I seriously doubt they will run a break-even business.

Private equity guys understand business models and competitive landscapes.  They are going to understand spending an extra $20M is a really poor solution to overcoming a $100M or $200M or $300M disparity in revenue.  I would look for them to be very focused on any a variety of strategies to build a winner.

I quite honestly would not be surprised to see payroll eventually hover around the tenth position with a year or two up near the fifth position if there's a good window of opportunity.

That'd be $200 million in 2024 or even $240 million if the dude saw a chance. 

This obviously wouldn't happen overnight and doesn't mean the team will be better, but it means mistakes are easier to get past and more chances can be taken. 

Minnesota is not small market, no matter how frequently the Twins told their fans that. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

13 hours ago, NYCTK said:

Agreed mostly. The large uproar amongst the fans against the  Pohalds wasn't really overwhelming until they "right sized" their business right when modest investment would have paid huge dividends, showing their true colors. 

No one should really try to spend like the NY or LA franchises. Everyone's mostly aware and OK with the market discrepancies existent in the world. But as long as the owner WANTS to win and is willing to invest in it, it's evident to the fans. 

That being said, these guys could try to spend like the big boys and honestly isn't a terrible business venture, trying to build a Midwest dynasty to turn a 1.5 B asset into the Cardinals (currently 2.5 B). There's real investment opportunity there if you actually build a winner. 

Ehhh, many Twins Fans have been Anti-Pohlad since the mid-nineties when they let their team be one of the worst in the AL for 6 years and another big chunk when Carl voted for contracting his own team in 2001. I let the small market thing slide in the mid-nineties as a “well, it’s the Metrodome, they can’t afford…” type of thing.
 

When Carl voted to contract his own team after mismanaging it for half a decade…. He lost me. The whole Pohlad family has been lying, cheating garbage in my eyes for 23 years.

As to whether a potential new ownership group is better or worse than the Pohlads:

Griffith was awful, The Pohlads were in some ways better, it’s hard to say how Griffith would have responded in the Dome and faced with the contraction issue, and was dead when Target Field. The only thing I can say with certainty is an owner that wants to own the team is a hell of a lot better than an owner who doesn’t.

whether the new ownership group are going to manage the team better, I have a hard time imagining they’ll be worse. It’s possible, but then why spend the money at all? Where the buyer beware issue is, the Cardinals grew from 1.5B to 2.5B during the cable tv boom. What direction is that value going from here forward? It could be the new ownership of the Twins are buying the dip. Short term revenue is dropping. It sounds like MLB has a plan to turn that around. I hope for all of us fans that is the case, or the pain of industry change will reduce the number of teams or reduce the quality of available players.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

48 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

I really like the idea of owners that are sports fans.  It just seems reasonable to believe they would be more obsessed with winning than the Pohlads and I think we likely see a slightly higher payroll.  Will this mean considerably bigger payroll?  I doubt it.  If the Statista estimates are close the Twins were generally in the $25-30M range in profit and I seriously doubt they will run a break-even business.

Private equity guys understand business models and competitive landscapes.  They are going to understand spending an extra $20M is a really poor solution to overcoming a $100M or $200M or $300M disparity in revenue.  I would look for them to be very focused on any a variety of strategies to build a winner.

Agreed, the pohlads are private equity investors too. They all seem to follow the same model, buy distressed assets, strip cost (frequently painfully) to save the asset from itself, sell or invest heavily to put it on a growth trajectory. We just watched this happen.

new ownership if they are fans might be more creative and more personally invested to turn the asset into growth, and that’s exciting.

[NYCTK]

3 minutes ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

What direction is that value going from here forward?

That's on baseball execs to figure out. WWE, obviously different beast but still relevant point of comparison, sold rights to 50 "games" a year for $500 million annually. People still watch TV, arguably more than ever, but the methods have changed. 

The money is still there, just need to market and sell the product in new ways. 

3 minutes ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

Ehhh, many Twins Fans have been Anti-Pohlad since the mid-nineties when they let their team be one of the worst in the AL for 6 years and another big chunk when Carl voted for contracting his own team in 2001.

Yeah, I worded that poorly. I'm old enough to have hated Carl since '01 as well. 

[TopGunn#22]

This is GREAT NEWS !!  These guys seem very similar to the Wilf brothers and most Vikings fans have been very happy with them.

The Twin Cities is Media Market #15.  We have never been a "small market."  We are, and will continue to be in the near future a "mid-market."  

The way they went right out and found a way to bring Kevin Durant to the Suns is encouraging.  It augers that they would bring that same, competitive posture to the Twins. 

This is also great news in that it really rings the bell for any other prospective owners that they better get in the game.  We as fans were just hovering in limbo until this point.  Now that this bell has been rung the process will begin to unfold.  

I can't offer an educated guess as to how quickly this could play out.  But if I'm the Pohlad family I'd like to entertain an intense bidding war for a relatively short period of time.  In other words, the posture of the Pohlad's in my estimation, is to sell this team as soon as possible, cashing in, and leaving the toxic mess they created last season in their rearview mirror.  As always, to the Pohlad's...it's all about the money.

The hope that the Twins could have a payroll of $150-$160 million is legit.  I just don't ever see us having a payroll in the $240 million dollar range based on values right now (2024-2025).  That just seems a little "RICH" for us as a mid-market team.  

But having the money to spend and spending it wisely are two completely different things.  I'm still not securely confident that our present FO can make these decisions to our satisfaction.  But I would like them to at least have the chance.  My dissatisfaction with the Pohlad ownership started LONG before last season's debacle.  I was disenchanted with them throughout the 2000 thru 2010 seasons when with 2 MVP's (Mauer & Morneau) a multiple CY Young Ace (Johan Santana) and the greatest closer in the history of the Twins (Joe Nathan) the Pohlad's never once made an impactful off season or trade deadline acquisition to get the Twins over the hump and into the World Series.  

The Pohlad's wasted a decade of Twins baseball that truly could have been special if they had just had the "go for it" mentality that was needed.  I think Tom Kelly actually retired earlier than he would have liked because he understood the Pohlad's were just going to be immoveable on this subject.  Ron Gardenhire has the ignominy of losing all those playoff games, but with just a little help from the Pohlad's his legacy could have been so much different.  

 

[NYCTK]

9 minutes ago, TopGunn#22 said:

The hope that the Twins could have a payroll of $150-$160 million is legit.  I just don't ever see us having a payroll in the $240 million dollar range based on values right now (2024-2025).  That just seems a little "RICH" for us as a mid-market team.

I think you're mostly right. But also thinking like old baseball owners that MUST have at least 10-20 million in operating profit. 

I would expect payroll to instantly increase to $160-$180. And then eventually grow to or above $200 in times of team success. Plus, with the fan base on life support, I wouldn't be shocked to see the new owners in on a free agent like Vlad Jr next offseason, upwards of $500 million contracts. 

And notably, rebuilds being less frequent and lengthy. 

The Suns are expected to pay $189 million in luxury taxes, and Forbes estimates $15 million operating loss. These brothers aren't owning teams to squeeze out value. 

[Cap'n Piranha]

10 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

Here is a reason to be optimistic about these two potentially coming in as owners:

Last year the Phoenix Suns paid more in luxury tax penalties than the entire Twins payroll.

They get it.  Keep your fingers crossed.

As I understand it, almost every team in the NBA pays some amount of luxury tax, so that’s not exactly the badge of honor you might think it is.  We should also consider whether or not that luxury tax payment resulted in defecit spending—if the NBA’s revenue generation and distribution models are better and flatter, then perhaps the Ishbias are simply spending to what revenues allow—which is precisely what numerous posters are vilifying the “cheap” Pohlads for.

It should also be noted that all this spending resulted in a 6 seed and first round sweep last year, and currently an 8 seed and trip to the play-in this year.

[JD-TWINS]

19 hours ago, ashbury said:

Forbes lists Justin at $4.9B net worth.  That seems actually a bit light in this day and age, where you don't want a market downturn to suddenly cause team management to sell assets or whatever because the owner's wealth is highly leveraged. Still, it's a good start - a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real money. 😀

Assumption would be if Justin is at $4.9 - $5.4B …….. brother Mat must be worth $1.5B on the light side - guessing, but seems to make sense. Should be able to find $25-$35M on top of current $130M budget to help get a few guys signed long term (extensions) and maybe another guy or two off FA market…..gotta be patient I guess.

[Cap'n Piranha]

38 minutes ago, TopGunn#22 said:

This is GREAT NEWS !!  These guys seem very similar to the Wilf brothers and most Vikings fans have been very happy with them.

The Twin Cities is Media Market #15.  We have never been a "small market."  We are, and will continue to be in the near future a "mid-market."  

The way they went right out and found a way to bring Kevin Durant to the Suns is encouraging.  It augers that they would bring that same, competitive posture to the Twins. 

This is also great news in that it really rings the bell for any other prospective owners that they better get in the game.  We as fans were just hovering in limbo until this point.  Now that this bell has been rung the process will begin to unfold.  

I can't offer an educated guess as to how quickly this could play out.  But if I'm the Pohlad family I'd like to entertain an intense bidding war for a relatively short period of time.  In other words, the posture of the Pohlad's in my estimation, is to sell this team as soon as possible, cashing in, and leaving the toxic mess they created last season in their rearview mirror.  As always, to the Pohlad's...it's all about the money.

The hope that the Twins could have a payroll of $150-$160 million is legit.  I just don't ever see us having a payroll in the $240 million dollar range based on values right now (2024-2025).  That just seems a little "RICH" for us as a mid-market team.  

But having the money to spend and spending it wisely are two completely different things.  I'm still not securely confident that our present FO can make these decisions to our satisfaction.  But I would like them to at least have the chance.  My dissatisfaction with the Pohlad ownership started LONG before last season's debacle.  I was disenchanted with them throughout the 2000 thru 2010 seasons when with 2 MVP's (Mauer & Morneau) a multiple CY Young Ace (Johan Santana) and the greatest closer in the history of the Twins (Joe Nathan) the Pohlad's never once made an impactful off season or trade deadline acquisition to get the Twins over the hump and into the World Series.  

The Pohlad's wasted a decade of Twins baseball that truly could have been special if they had just had the "go for it" mentality that was needed.  I think Tom Kelly actually retired earlier than he would have liked because he understood the Pohlad's were just going to be immoveable on this subject.  Ron Gardenhire has the ignominy of losing all those playoff games, but with just a little help from the Pohlad's his legacy could have been so much different.  

 

#15 is not a small market in the grand scheme of the total United States.  It is in the grand scheme of United States metro areas with professional sports franchises.  Especially when you consider that the 3 largest areas each have multiple teams, and the divided markets are still larger the the Twins market.  The Twins aren’t small like Milwaukee, or Oakland was.  But they are small in comparison to NY, LA, Bos, Phi, ATL, etc.  To pretend that the Twins will ever be able to compete financially with those markets in a league that to a substantial degree eschews national revenue splits is foolish.  The only way the Twins go toe-to-toe financially is if one of the 30 or so richest people in the country buy the team—neither Ishbia is on that list.

[NYCTK]

3 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

The only way the Twins go toe-to-toe financially is if one of the 30 or so richest people in the country buy the team—neither Ishbia is on that list.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Ishbias would instantly become as rich as the second richest owners in MLB. This is why this ownership is near best case scenario. 

[JD-TWINS]

14 hours ago, Jocko87 said:

 

Less glib answer, listen to the interview.  He states he wanted to end up in the midwest and is really big on going where the opportunity is.  A team for sale is the midwest would obviously catch his attention.

Agreed.

Investment firm is in Chicago - no more Teams moving there………. no more Teams moving to Phoenix/Tucson area either. Nobody seems concerned A-Rod is moving the Timberwolves to his back yard - right?