Woof Bronzer

Great post. It's not worth engaging with this gentleman. Last week he was condescendingly telling Twins fans they were stupid to complain about the TV debacle because they could have just purchased an 81 game Twins streaming package on MLB.TV. The guy just isn't educated in the topics he argues, it's just blind fealty to business wizard Joe Pohlad.

Comrade, this is like the 3rd straight post where you suggest turning the Twins over to the City Council. We get it, you love communism, but we tried the communism once already by handing the Pohlads a half billion dollar subsidy - picking winners and losers, and all. And we all know how that turned out.

I truly do not understand this argument. The Twins have literally made $1.5billion on the franchise for doing nothing. They got a half billion dollar handout from the community for TF. That's $2 billion dollars for doing nothing, and doesn't include operating profits. Is $2 billion in pure profit enough to convince you that one of the wealthiest families on the planet would survive if they spent a little more money on payroll? If not, what number would be enough for you? Can you name one successful business in the world that operates until this philosophy of "hold customers hostage by refusing to improve your product unless customers give you a bunch of money for their crappy product"?

According to Forbes the least valuable franchise is worth $1b (Marlins). The freaking A's are worth $1.2b. I know it's just Forbes but still. It's really hard to tank the value of a pro sports team.

The greedy, cheap, horrible Pohlads got a half billion dollar handout from the community. The community has invested in this team. The Pohlads have made $1.5 billion on the value of the franchise no matter how poorly they perform. Normal businesses don't operate this way. Professional sports are not like other businesses.

The Padres Spent $40m More Than The Twins Despite Being In A Smaller Market. They Cruised To The Playoffs.

Tell me more about this 81 game Twins package on MLB.TV, sounds great!

Scary thing about all this is that I suspect Joe Pohlad views this as a successful season. He was so excited about his goals for the season - to cut costs and squeeze some extra profit out of the team - that he couldn't wait a week after the 2023 season was over to announce it. And he held firm on it all season. They didn't reinvest their tv money, they didn't invest at the deadline. Mission accomplished. The only regret I'd guess they have is their idea to actively tank the tv situation so that fans will be forced to go to the stadium and spend big bucks didn't seem to work out as planned.

I blame BAM money. You're correct, I'm not answering your bad faith strawman question because it's nowhere near the point being made. Perhaps you can use that dollar to buy the last media company Joe Pohlad ran into the ground - that's what it sold for as a result of all his "business decisions".

Another possible explanation to the DSP mystery is that the Pohlads set a specific goal or goals for him every year, and he consistently achieves them. Joe Pohlad clearly has no interest in PR – he does not care what fans think in the slightest – so why should we assume he prioritizes PR as one of DSP’s duties? Wouldn’t a simpler explanation be that DSP's only job is to deliver a certain profit to the Pohlads, and he consistently does that, and that’s why he’s still around? I’ve never seen a single comment from the Pohlads to suggest anything other than complete satisfaction with his performance. He’s the only non Pohlad on the Twins board, for goodness sake. They love whatever it is he does. To understand the Pohlads you must understand how they got their obscene wealth. Carl made a sizable part of his fortune by aggressively taking over companies, firing everybody, stripping the companies of valuable assets and leaving the destruction for someone else to deal with. He destroyed companies and ruined many livelihoods of the people working there overnight – people would arrive at work to find the doors locked and them out of a job. (Relatedly Carl also made good money as a banker foreclosing on small businesses and families.) This took no particular business savvy or talent; it only required ruthlessness, bottomless greed, and a lack of empathy for the people, families, and communities left in the wake of his destruction. Most of his tactics are illegal now; they were always morally bankrupt. To Carl a community or organization was just a collection of value to be stripped for personal wealth. The Pohlads do not create value; they destroy it. They are not builders. They do not know how to grow a business. They do not know how to introduce new customers or expand a customer base. They do not understand customer service because you don’t have to worry about customers when you take over a company, you just do whatever you want and leave others to clean up the mess. Their whole philosophy and empire is built on squeezing profits out of a business and then discarding it. That’s what they do best. Think of it this way: the Pohlads don’t view the Twins as a baseball organization, but rather as an asset to be squeezed for profit one year at a time. With this framing the decisions start to make a lot more sense.

Your philosophy and condescension aligns nicely with the philosophy and condescension of this failing organization. You should get a job there to help them in their efforts to fully destroy their fanbase.

I think we're overcomplicating this. The Twins don't have a plan. Under Jim Pohlad, the plan was to optimize profits by just investing enough to remain modestly competitive - aided by the weak AL Central - and never getting reckless and going all in. So they were always looking five years down the road to a future that never came. Given what we've learned the last few days, the current Twins seem to be a failson vanity project. They're a toy to keep Joe Pohlad too distracted to destroy any more media companies. No planful organization would sign Correa to that deal and then cut payroll. No planful mid-market team would tie up 60% of their payroll on 3 players as Gregg has written. No planful organization would announce the extension of their manager and GM before a historically failed season is even over - wouldn't any serious business want to take a breath and evaluate what the hell just happened, and come up with a plan for the future? There is no plan. Joe Pohlad is just playing Stratomatic.

Good news for you, Joe Pohlad is neither a banker nor a businessman!

For me it's the poor performance. Missed playoffs 3 of last 4 years, including 2 epic collapses. All told, 1 ALDS game win in 8 years. Results matter.

I'm comfortable saying that the Pohlads, who have watched the value of the Twins grow by a billion dollars regardless of how they perform, and who received a half billion dollar handout from fans, would not go bankrupt without a $30mil payroll cut.

Fair enough, I don't think I can argue with any of this...well I'm sure I could find a way :)

Is there a business in the world that operates on this fantasy of not investing any of their own money until customers spend enough to cover costs? The "blame the fans" theory going around TD is just mind boggling to me. The Pohlads got a half billion dollar handout from fans. More than 20 million fans have spent hard earned money at Target Field. The value of the franchise has increased by a billion dollars since the Pohlads bought it despite them having poor business savvy and having multiple long stretches of abysmal baseball teams. They need to invest more into this franchise, period. Fans are not obligated to spend money on a terrible product in the hopes that maybe, just maybe the Pohlads would reinvest it...but given everything we know about them, there's no guarantee they wouldn't just pocket it and cut payroll anyway, just like they did this year.

Milwaukee didn't crack 2mil in attendance for the first 31 years of the franchise's existence. Why? The team was bad. 2 playoff appearances in 31 years. Their recent attendance has been much better; that's because the team has been better. 6 playoffs in 7 years. Their attendance has followed accordingly. I'll let you make the correlation between winning and attendance. Last year their attendance was 100k above 2022. Fans did their part, they turned out and spent cash. So for 2024 the owner reinvested all that additional 2023 revenue into the team. Right? That's how you are saying this should work? Fans spend, ownership spends, it's a reinforcing circle and everyone wins. Right? Nope. They pocketed the extra revenue and cut payroll by $20mil. Fans aren't the problem. Greedy owners are.

I think you're a bit confused. The Pohlads spent more than a decade begging for a half billion dollar government handout for something they could have easily pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and done themselves. They were so adamant in having government subsidize their operations, rather than rely on their own hard work and self-sufficiency, that they invented a buyer out of whole cloth, and when that didn’t work, they threatened to just fold the team. Now THAT is dedicated anti-capitalism!

That sure is a take lol. As they say in business school, "if your product is crappy just blame customers for not buying enough of them to make it better."

This is fascinating. When you think about it though, this is really in keeping with the Pohlad's unshakeable ownership philosophy that fans should unquestioningly invest as much money and time into the Twins as possible while the organization invests as little of their own money and time as possible. Fans should turn out in September to spend money on a team free falling out of the playoffs; fans should also up their season tickets without asking any questions or having to waste the time of a customer service rep; etc etc.

You're...blaming the FANS for this mess??????

Aren't you the guy who's been echoing the Pohlad company line for the last month? Go pocket protect elsewhere, the Pohlads have been pulling this crap for decades and most of us are exhausted by it.

Sigh. No, no they absolutely are not. Want proof? The Pohlads still own the team.

Humans are flawed. Plenty of young athletes need to grow up at some point. Sano isn't the first athlete to take this path and won't be the last. It didn't work here. I'm sure he wishes it had. But that's not "shameful", that's life.