Inside the Business of the Minnesota Twins

[East Coast Twin]

Saw this Twins Cities Business podcast on Youtube.  They detail how the team accumulated so much debt during the covid years and through the loss of television revenue.

 

[stringer bell]

Pretty good summary of how we got here. Probably more sympathetic to the Pohlads than they deserve, but it does explain some (not all) of the seemingly poor decisions. 

[glunn]

I think that this explains a lot. Thanks for sharing it.

[MN Brian]

I found this interesting and a very nice summary of the business side of the Twins, thanks for sharing @East Coast Twin!  Good enough to invest 50 minutes to watch.  I'm not sure there is anything new in here that hasn't been discussed thoroughly on Twins Daily, but pulls it all together and offers it with maybe a bit more business perspective and less animosity than you get here =)

One thing that did seem missing in the piece was how much of the debt may have been tied to the original stadium deal.  While the covid times and ongoing debt service payments certainly contributed to the rise in the overall debt, no way that can explain all of it.  I think that a significant portion still is likely to have come from financing with minimal payments on the Twins contribution to the building of the stadium.

[MN Brian]

There was also an article in the Strib today regarding many of the same topics with the lead topic being the payroll at 24th in baseball this year:

https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-twins-payroll-tom-pohlad-mlb-rank/601661789

I found this graphic in the story helpful in seeing the payroll numbers across the decades:

[Mike Sixel]

My main question for anyone trying to do this is...... Where did you get numbers validated by an outside accounting firm?

[Dave Borton]

23 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

My main question for anyone trying to do this is...... Where did you get numbers validated by an outside accounting firm?

Ah, if only the MLB Teams traded on the NASDAQ, we could pour over the books. As is, we get jackdipt.