Mat Ishbia, Potential Twins Co-Buyer, Clearly Understands The Assignment

Recently, I wrote a piece imploring Twins ownership and business operations to look at fan engagement, and suggested the place to start is by “taking their hands out of our wallets”. It seems like Mat Ishbia is on board with that premise. Today, he tweeted this:

He followed that up by saying, “A family of 4 used to spend $98 on hot dogs/water/popcorn. Now they can enjoy that same meal for $24. Our fans and community are the foundation of what we do, and we will continue to invest in making this the best organization in all of basketball, on and off the court.”

This message tells fans in no uncertain terms that ownership understands it’s expensive to come to a game, and they want to make it more appealing and affordable for fans to spend many evenings watching Kevin Durant and Devin Booker work their magic. As a lifelong Twins fan, this approach is incredibly exciting, and leads to some wish-casting about the future.

Before you compare this concessions, er, concession (sorry) to the Target Field family sections, the Phoenix Suns appear to be doing this on a much larger scale, and will include more options. And they're not the first sports team to do so. The Atlanta Falcons and Hawks have done similar price reductions, and reported an increase in overall sales as a result. The Utah Jazz are also jumping on the bandwagon.

Simply put, Ishbia’s decision and general mentality show an understanding of market forces, and a desire to grow the customer (fan) base. Compare that with the current ownership and business operations group's milquetoast attempts to feign interest in doing the same, and it’s easy to draw the conclusion that the Ishbia brothers a new breed.

I won’t rehash Cody Christie’s great breakdown of the Ishbia brothers and their approach to other sports-related challenges. You can read here how they handled TV carriage disputes and local blackouts. Spoiler? Anti-Pohlad. Seriously, check it out.

Look, this piece isn’t meant to be an anti-Pohlad screed. There’s some sense they haven’t been super interested in running the team for a while now. In some ways, that even makes a little sense. Jim Pohlad didn’t buy the team. Neither did his nephew Joe. The Twins are one of their many businesses, and they may view owning the Twins as a bit of an albatross, a chain around their neck—preventing them from investing in and managing their other businesses in the way they would like.

In fact, it’s fair to recognize that the Pohlad family has shown themselves to be great at a few things, at least as it pertains to sports franchise ownership. Unfortunately, those things are more than offset by the way they prioritize the short-term bottom line, alienating fans, and taking a tone-deaf approach in their statements to the media.

The Ishbia brothers, on the other hand, have shown that (at least when it comes to running a sports franchise) they see things differently. Their experience in running very successful businesses that generate immense profits seems to have helped them build expertise in scaling companies up and increasing valuations. Sometimes. that includes reducing the short-term profit margin to increase the long-term one.

So far, they have been treating their professional sports teams the way multi-billionaire owners probably should—with a farsighted approach that prioritizes winning and fan engagement. They have made big signings and trades, invested heavily, and taken short-term losses to engage fans and build a winner that the community is proud of. Mat is on record saying about the Suns: "We're not focused on money, we're focused on winning." If you don’t try to win in sports, what’s the point? Could that approach be any more anti-Pohlad?

It’s obviously impossible to predict the future, and it’s entirely possible that the Pohlads sell the Twins to a different group, or don’t sell at all. It’s also important to recognize that lowering concessions costs, spending big on free agents, and broadcasting games free of charge may not be the Ishbia approach to driving attendance for Twins games, even if they do buy the team. The NBA is run differently than MLB, and Justin, the likely primary buyer, is not Mat. He may run things differently. However, if Twins fans squint just a bit, they can see some potential changes ahead, should a sale go through to a group fronted by the anti-Pohlad Ishbias.

If we're lucky, perhaps a year from now, this long-suffering fanbase may once again feel like their love of the Twins is reciprocated and that ownership is legitimately trying to drive attendance and engagement. Invest in the team, commensurate with market size; bring fans back to the ballpark; go all-in to win when it makes sense. That’s the assignment, for any anti-Pohlad ownership group, and the Ishbias seem to reflect an understanding of it. Let's make a deal!