Will Lower-Than-Anticipated Attendance and Payroll Limitations Impact Twins Trade Deadline?

8 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

There's less violence than ever. The stats are clear on this. 

This. I live in North Loop as well as the majority of my friends, none of us have experienced any kind of violent crime and we are out late at night frequently. At worst there's the occasional stolen bike or car break-in and that comes with any city

The Twins have major public relations issues.  They make horrendous baseball related decisions that continues to alienate fans and then blame the fans for not coming.  I was one of those that didn't go to early games because they closed the upper sections.  They needed to dump st.peter years ago.

My guess is that lower attendance is caused by a number of factors:

Younger people are not as interested in baseball anymore. 
Bad access to watch games for a number of years has reduced interest for a lot of fans. 
The Twins have developed a reputation as an org that is going to put money first. They pumped up that reputation big time with payroll slashing and right sizing. There are real nuances to this discussion but most fans don’t care about that. I don’t do the cheap Pohlads thing but the perception by a lot of fans is pretty negative towards the money issue. 
Many people, especially in out state MN, have the perception that Minneapolis is still not safe. Statistics say otherwise but perception is reality for the people choosing to buy or not buy tickets. 

It’s a complicated problem. And I’m not sure the Twins are up to the task of dealing with it. 
 

They also have been one of the least expensive places to see a game ranking 29th entering this year. Lower attendance and lower revenue per ticket is not going to help them compete with other teams.

It was a PR mistake to announce that they were reducing budget but that came after their best opportunity to sell tickets during the 2023 playoffs. If they didn’t sell 2024 tickets then, why should they have expected the winter would be much better? 

I have no doubt at all that Twins ownership will use the excuse of slightly lower attendance this season to stand pat at the trade deadline.  It's the Pohlad way.  I was a little surprised at the TV revenue figures listed in the article.  I had always thought that Twins 2023 TV revenue from Diamond Sports was $55 million (the article listed it as $60 million for 2023).  And I thought the figure we all discussed on TD after it was announced the team was going back to Diamond Sports for this year was $47 million (roughly 85% of what 2023's revenue had been).

Whatever the precise revenue figures are, really isn't relevant to the Pohlad's.  They were going to cut salary/expenses no matter what for 2024.  Cleveland, Detroit and Kansas City all made moves to be competitive and it's worked out pretty well for the Guardians and Royals.  Heck, the Royals just added Hunter Henry to their struggling bullpen.  That's a decent move.

I don't disagree that the biggest additions the Twins can and will make before or soon after the trade deadline will be Royce Lewis, Brock Stewart and Justin Topa (and maybe Varland to the BP).  However, none of those moves improve the starting rotation.  Adding a SP who at worst would slot in as the #3 behind Lopez and Ryan and pushes Ober to #4 and SWR to #5 is a need that should filled if the Pohlad's are serious about defending their A.L. Central crown and making some noise in the playoffs. 

The American League pennant is there for the taking.  The Yankees suddenly look beatable.  The Astros ain't the Astros anymore.  Cleveland is catchable and beatable.  Seattle has gotten no help at all offensively from Jorge Polanco and despite great pitching has a weak lineup top to bottom.  The team to beat is Baltimore, and the only chance the Twins have is to get healthy and find a SP who has similar talent to Lopez and Ryan.  But I'm not holding my breath that such a move will be made.     

"This remains an area that is more Vikings than Twins and both the Wild and Timberwolves get good interest."

Interesting point. Now the other 3 leagues are salary-cap leagues, so everyone (in theory) is operating on the same playing field. In the MLB, teams have a choice in how much/how hard they want to pursue a championship. Now, I know the readership here has long had the realization of how the Twins operate, and kind of stay 'grounded' in expectations, but what if the 'overall' fandom has come to that same conclusion; that the Twins priorities are just selling/profiting on 2 1/2- 3 hours of "entertainment", no different than a Monster Truck Rally or a Disney on Ice show, as opposed to "striving" to win a World Series?

51 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

people want to support a champion, or at least a team they think can get there. 

This does not explain interest in the Vikings

3 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

They dodge and PR speak their way around such questions all the time. Falvey loves to tell us the Pohlads give them everything they need to build a competitive team. This offseason he decided to tell us they were slashing payroll 6 days after the world series and ruin the momentum they'd gained from the playoffs instead of going with the tried and true "we get everything we need."

It's ok to admit they completely and utterly botched their offseason messaging. They're paying for it now. I'm not going to get into another debate with you on the business things. Many of us told you they were hurting their bottom line all offseason and you just told us we didn't know business. Now they're down 54,000 fans to this point in the season year over year. They screwed up, and it's costing them millions. 

You just completely dodged the question.   If they responded to a reporter, would you have criticized them for not being transparent.  That's what I see here all the time is contempt when they are not completely transparent.  When they answer honestly, you complain just the same. 

Should they have lied or misled.  Would that have made you fell better.  The messaging was bad no doubt but let's face this is 100% a bitch about reducing spending not the messaging.  All of the other rhetoric is a platform for you to continue to squak about spending.  

The question in the original post about adding players (especially a strong starter) leads me to believe that they won’t spend big for a rental.

They might, however, dip more heavily into their prospect capital for an arb-1 arm or something more $-controlled.

It is spending the future rather than money but seems more plausible to have them give up a Rodriguez, Keaschall, Morris, Raya, Matthews, Prielipp type package (not all, but that level of player) to add that young 3rd starter with some years left.  Not sure that is wise but seems more likely than Snell or Scherzer.

Looks like the NBA just destroyed the regional sports network.

NBA owner warns regional sports networks 'unviable' with new TV deal - Yahoo Sports

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

I wouldn't have criticized them for not being transparent. Would some fans? Absolutely. But I personally would not. I'm all over these boards saying they shouldn't say anything they don't absolutely have to. Whether it be about payroll, injuries, anything. PR talk your way around everything.

This is not "a bitch about reducing spending not the messaging." I said it the second Falvey told us they were cutting payroll he shouldn't have said it. I argued all offseason that they were completely and utterly bungling the business decisions and messaging and it was going to cost them. Yes, they should have lied and misled. Like every company does. They should have communications and PR people who talked to Falvey, St Peter, and Pohlad before they did public interviews to discuss how they were going to brand and message things. Like every company does. I haven't changed my complaint. My complaint was they screwed up messaging, took a short-term payday, and those things hurt their ability to grow their fanbase by alienating fans and destroying all the momentum they'd built up the second half of last year.

And, despite your constant ridicule and insistence that they knew what they were doing, I was right. You spent all offseason fighting against many of us telling us we just didn't understand. Well it sure appears we had a little better idea about what we were talking about than you believed. They "right-sized" themselves right out of millions of dollars just like so many of us said they were doing. I'm done with this conversation. Believe what you want. They screwed up and they're paying for it now.

They are down 54,000 fans at this point so let’s say they end 100,000 down in attendance.  At $60/person which is generous that’s $6M and they give half to opposing teams.  They spent $30M less and lost $3M.  Your inability to see the net is the root of our disagreement.  You also insisted (over & over) during the course of the spending conversation that anyone that did not understand losing Polanco was catastrophic just did not get it.  Had they kept him, Polanco would be at 2B and Lee would be in the minors.

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

Oh, I think it does. Football fans all except for the really terrible teams, are convinced this year is their year. 

2 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

What about your precious BAM money they lost? Conveniently leaving that out now that it doesn't fit your narrative? How much was that again? And that's before the loss of TV money. Nice doing business with you today. I'm sure the Twins aren't at all concerned about the lower attendance. All part of the grand plan I'm sure.

And, yes, I was very wrong on Polanco and Santana this year. And I'm more than willing to admit that right now. You wanna take a shot at admitting you were wrong about anything or just going to stick with this being the best business plan they could've come up with?

Unless losing the BAM money somehow kept fans away it is completely irrelevant to this conversation   The loss of BAM money will impact profitability but it has zero impact on attendance.  Cutting payroll is the variable you are claiming resulted in 54,000 less fans.  You might be right but what does that have to do with the presence BAM or lack therefore?  How does BAM correlate with attendance?  Absolutely nothing.  So, yes, nice doing business with you while you demonstrate once again you don't understand finance. 

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

Yikes. Dude. Just stop. I told you the cutting of payroll wasn't my complaint, the messaging and handling of it is. I literally just told you I thought they should've lied and misled so as to not kill fan engagement. The conversation that you once again jumped into and wanted to steer into your very specific little corner to make a point that I refused to make because you were wrong about me being mad about them lying was about their business decisions AND MESSAGING leading to the loss of attendance, and thus money.

The BAM money. The TV money. The attendance money all play into that loss of money. The variable I am claiming resulted in the loss of fans is the horrible marketing/PR/messaging campaign they ran this offseason. I said it was going to hurt their bottom line. It is now hurting their bottom line. The idea that you can look at the 30 mil less in payroll and say there isn't a problem with losing 3 mil in attendance while ignoring the other losses is ridiculous. The Twins planned for the losses of the BAM and TV money. They didn't also plan for the loss of attendance. So the lost attendance revenue is what's directly effecting them making less money than they planned to. 

At this point you're completely ignoring what I'm actually saying and running with your own narrative. Like usual. So I'm signing off for the day. The Twins business department isn't hitting their projections. Their attendance has been hurt by the bungled offseason. You said that wouldn't happen. I said it would. Believe what you want, but there's no reason we should believe they're happy with the way things are going financially this season.

First of all, misleading your customers is a terrible way to run a business and you condoning it says a lot.  Secondly, I simply don't buy your objection is the messaging. Even if it was, the catalyst for loss attendance is still the payroll decrease. Third, your claim in this thread was they cost themselves millions.  Your continuous rant is all about how much this is costing the team and you don't even understand you have to count the cost savings compared to the revenue loss.  Plus, there is a reasonable chance they make up that difference before the end of the year with continued good play going forward.   

BTW ... What would have been acceptable IMO would have been to say they would be very difficult to manage any multi year signings given the increases scheduled for next year and left it at that.   .