Brainstorming Ways the Twins Can Engage Younger Fans in 2025

[Nick Nelson]

Up for sale and shedding payroll, the Twins are struggling to sustain interest from longtime fans, much less attract a new generation. Here's a lighthearted look at some tactics to win over younger audiences next year.

Image courtesy of © Jordan Johnson-Imagn Images

The Minnesota Twins brand is in a state of crisis. Hopes of growing attendance and interest coming off a breakthrough year were dashed, partially out of self-sabotage, as the team drew fewer fans, reduced TV access and collapsed late in the season. With the front office transparently admitting that they need to scale back spending and make tough bottom-line decisions this offseason, a sense of apathy is setting in, even among the diehards like myself.

In order for the franchise to enjoy a healthy future, they need to reverse course on their dwindling fan momentum. Attracting a younger generation that can turn into longtime followers is vital. This has been a concerted effort for MLB as a whole and should be one for the Twins as well. 

There are plenty of serious ideas to be discussed for rejuvenating fan engagement, from simply winning more games to, say, lowering concession prices. What follows is a series of decidedly non-serious suggestions for reaching young fans in the 2025 season. It should definitely be noted that the author is almost 40 and extremely out of touch, but hopefully that only makes the exercise more sadly amusing.

Refer to hot dogs exclusively as "glizzies" at Target Field.
Glizzy has become a popular nickname for hot dogs among the youth. The Twins should go all in on this trendy terminology at the ballpark. I mean menu listings, vendor shouts, the works. When people order a "hot dog" at the counter, the cashier should stare at them blankly. 

Will this weird out and alienate older people? Of course. That's part of the charm.

Buy TikTok and rebrand it as TwinsTok.
The beloved social media platform faces a potential ban in the U.S. next month unless a domestic buyer can step in and save it. This is the Pohlads' (or a new owner's) chance to play hero for the app's heavily youthful user base. With more than 1 billion daily users worldwide, a purchase of TikTok and subtle rebrand as TwinsTok would offer great opportunities for brand awareness. 

As a bonus, Twins ownership would have its own streaming platform for broadcasting games. The action would need to be transmitted to audiences in the form of brief clips but with the state of today's attention spans, that's just as well.

Start a rap beef.
We saw earlier this year the culturally transfixing power of a heated hip-hop rivalry, when Kendrick Lamar and Drake went toe to toe over a series of increasingly personal diss tracks. Maybe it's time for the Twins to follow this example by stirring up smoke with their opps.

If they want to build on the cross-border friction that Kdot and Drizzy sparked up, the Twins could set their sights on the Toronto Blue Jays and former hitting coach David Popkins. Or they could stay closer to home by taking aim at the neighborly Brewers. What about a civil war beef between the Twins and Saints? The possibilities are endless.

Of course, this would be dependent on finding someone to craft the bars, and they're gonna need to bring it. I wonder who on the Twins has the best rap writing skills? I'll happily volunteer my pen if called upon.

Institute team dress code requiring high socks.
Apparently wearing ankle socks is out -- a sign of dated fashion sensibilities. We can apply this shift to the Twins and deduce that the low-pants look is simply not resonating with younger observers. It's time for this franchise to take a page out of the Steinbrenner book and mandate a strict appearance policy; instead of outlawing facial hair, they can take hard stance on the "mother of all baseball fashion arguments" by requiring all players to rock high socks at all times. Fortunately team leader Carlos Correa is already ahead of the game here.

Fortnite Nights at the ballpark every fortnight.
If I know one thing about young people -- and that might be about accurate -- it's that they love Fortnite. The game is a generational sensation. One study found that almost two-thirds of players for the mega-hit battle royale video game are between 18 and 24. Well, there's nothing like glomming onto a mainstream trend to borrow some of that buzz! 

We've seen baseball teams dabble with Fortnite-themed events before. Minor-league teams have used it as a promo gimmick and last January the Red Sox hosted an offseason Fortnite game on the Fenway jumbotron. The Twins can make waves by going even bigger. 

Picture this: Fortnite Night at Target Field. Fans encouraged to dress up in creative "skins," and to play Fortnite rounds on their mobile devices in the stands, with occasional highlights piped to the big screen. Players doing celebratory dances and emotes on the field. The whole works.

And we're not doing this just once a year, but once every two weeks. Build some real sustained inroads with the Fortnite community. If the Twins aren't at home on a date the event falls, it's still happening at Target Field. 

Let's hear your best ideas for bringing younger fans to the ballpark and broadcasts in 2025. You're welcome to take the assignment a little more seriously than I did. Or not!

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[DJL44]

Celebratory dances are fun. People like to go to soccer games and watch people kick a ball back and forth because they can do their chants and sing songs.

[Fire Dan Gladden]

Steal from everyone else. 

There are many pro sports teams everywhere attempting to do just this.  Don't limit your search to baseball.  Copy what other teams are doing that is successful.  Things that may seem obnoxious can be fun (the Twins had a month of throwing around summer sausage for crying out loud).  There are reasons why the StP Saints, the Savannah Bananas, the Harlem Globetrotters can draw huge crowds.

As much as we like to think pro sports are competitions, first and foremost they are entertainment. 

[bean5302]

Honestly, an epic rap battle between Twins players throughout the season would be hilarious. Might need to hire a professional company to stage it dress up style like "Epic Rap Battles of History" Let the fans vote via their MLB Ballpark apps. Have local artists submit their scripts and give those artists credit for the tongue in cheek raps.

Almost none of these satirical ideas are truly crazy, haha. Or I might be more crazy than suspected? Jim Jeffries - "That's the thing about crazy people. They don't know they're crazy. That's what makes them crazy!"

[nicksaviking]

Face tattoo night.

THC seltzer night.

Work from the stadium in your pajamas night.

Bring your Stanley tumbler to the stadium night. Filled with THC seltzer.

[Muppet]

I got into baseball as a kid because I could watch it on TV. Maybe, ...  put baseball games back on TV, or streaming services that kids can access. 

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, Muppet said:

I got into baseball as a kid because I could watch it on TV. Maybe, ...  put baseball games back on TV, or streaming services that kids can access. 

Hmmm... I got into baseball because of a girl and a company event.

[h2oface]

So this is satire and the funny stuff, eh? Well, OK. But all suggesstions seem presented as actual proposals, and not satire. In fact, some are just reporting what is already happening elsewhere, no?

I seriously don't think there is any hope for the younger crowd to be attracted. The fans that will be dying out now were obsessed as kids. There were only a couple of channels, usually, until the mid sixties, and even in the early years of "cable TV " into the 70's, access to watch games was easy. We scoured the newspaper box scores every day when the newspapers arrived, as we spread them out on the floor, laid down and  memorized batting averages. We traded cards, played the game through at least Pony League, watched Basin League live games, and had transistor radios with the single ear piece that we treasured. That Peach sports page in the Sunday Minneapolis Tribune was worked over all week with the full list of current averages and stats. The Sporting News was King. Now..... with all the media, everything is a distraction. 

The thing I miss the most now about going to the games is the sound of the ballpark. You could hear the concession guys' unique calls ringing through the staduim. We actually were glued to the action of the game, could hear the interesting chatter. The transistor radio was playing in one ear with the game call from Halsey and Herb. To go to Metropolitan Stadium to see the games was magic. 

Now, I am bombarded with deafening loud music and bombastic lights flashing and hundreds of things distracting from the game instead of attracting one to it. Kids are not learning the rules to the game, so they have no idea what is so interesting and miss the whole mental part of the game. When I see them at the game, they usually aren't even paying attention, and are living in their cell phones that this generataion of parents have used for parenting since they could hold something in their wee little hands.

I really don't think there is much hope. Especially as access is choked out by media contracts that prevent even those that love it from easily tuning in. Players are strangers, and even intense fans here so often just want to get rid of the whole team year by year. The Audio in the ballpark is torture, like the loudness war that happened to music when CD's became the format and since. Incessant. Never stopping, even between innings. I don't care about concessions. I haven't found any ballpark, these days, that won't let you bring in a healthy amount of food, and the food I bring is always way better than the ballparks serve. I don't need a $20 beer, ever. I don't really see, with all the distractions and competion for attention of all the entertainment options, that baseball will be able to sustain or grow a fan base. So many great lifelong fans, those misunderstood boomers, will be dying in the next 10 and 15 years now. So many that baseball will surely face decline in fan numbers even if they continue to make it less about baseball and more about distractions for the younger few that do find baseball. I guess many of us won't be around to see what happens. But we saw Harmon Killebrew, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Sandy Kofax, Bob Gibson, Camillo Pascual, Zoilo Versalles, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Mudcat Grant, Kirby Puckett, Kent Krbek, 2 Twins' World Series Championships (and the 65 Series, amazing) etc etc....... and know and love the game. It was a fine run. And like the climate, we might have gotten the best there will ever be without suffering the impending consequences.

 

[dcswede]

If kids aren't playing baseball in their backyards for fun - not organized Little League, just a self-chosen activity - they're naturally going to care less and about watching other people do it.

[Original_JB]

Get rid of TC Bear and convince Paige Spiranac to give up golf and come teach us all the game of baseball instead; in the stands, on social media, etc. 

https://www.outkick.com/culture/paige-spiranac-gets-ready-for-the-world-series-in-a-skimpy-uniform