Who Owns Target Field?

During the 1990s, I was a Minnesota Twins season ticket holder and sat in the lower deck on the third base side, where I caught three foul balls, including one pitched by Bartola Colon, who is still active.  In the corridors of the Metrodome, I was sometimes close enough to touch Carl Pohlad or Calvin Griffith, who would show up during his final years.  Regular people interacted with billionaires.  It was like the New York Subway system.  This type of interaction serves the public good.  During the last few years of the Metrodome, we went to many Twins games, as season ticket holders in the upper deck outfield cheap seats.  The Metrodome definitely felt like a public place.

I was a sometimes season ticket holder at Oakland A's games and went to the game featured in the Moneyball movie.  The Oakland stadium still feels like a public place.

The building of Target Field created a different atmosphere.  Now, Twins games are for the well-off. I will demonstrate how the Minnesota Twins price out the sense of community they once created, and show by example who controls public places.

Less than ten years ago, you could buy an 81 game season ticket for less than $100 and the Twins said they needed to move because they weren't making enough money on concessions.  I calculate that with Target Field, the Twins are making an additional $50 million on tickets and an additional $25 million on concessions.  At the SABR convention, Society for American Baseball Research, I asked a "Business of Baseball" panel if my math was right.  Tom Goldstein told me I forgot to include stadium naming rights.  The head of the Minnesota Ballpark Authority told me that the Twins have increased salaries.  No one argued with my math.  We live in the 12th largest media market, so threats that baseball would eliminate the team were always laughable. Forbes values the Minnesota Twins at $510 million and calculates $213 million of annual revenue.  The average ticket price is now $33 and getting a ticket for $20 is difficult.   Target Field is big money.  Lower incomes are now priced out.

You can see the difference in the crowd.  At the upper deck of the Metrodome, we would often sit behind the "Charge Guy".  Every time the organ would play duhduh duh duh duhduh, he would stand up, wearing his Doug Mientkiewicz jersey, raise his right arm hand in fist, and yell charge.  The Target Field audience may enjoy the game as much as the Metrodome audience, but I am not seeing enthusiasm demonstrated in the same way.  I have never seen the Charge Guy at Target Field.

At the Metrodome, you would hear the not-so-great voice of Bob Casey announcing players and announcing that there is no smoking.  Bob Casey died.  Music used to include local acts and quirky selections, but now is programmed by a media conglomerate.  I listen to out-of town broadcasts and hear the same snippets of walk up music regardless of which player and which team.  The more “big business” they become, the more the unique identity of the Minnesota Twins fades away.  

I would like us to think about who owns public parks.

My wife bought a white dress and white shoes and had a Diner-en-Blanc, a dinner in white, in Rice Park with 200 bourgeois and about fifty hungry looking people who were not offered food.  She felt like offering these people white tee shirts and a seat at the table.  Others felt threatened by them.  It turns out that it is the people in white who own the city park, not unshaven masses.

Saint Paul took money from Major League Baseball to build a “Field of Dreams” in Dunning Park near Skyline Towers where a huge number of soccer playing Somalis live.  The new field is locked.  Since there is no public space available, mothers bring their children down the street from me, a half mile further, to play soccer on a tiny field next to a parking lot.  The District Council voted against the Field of Dreams.  The District Council voted against the Field of  Dreams a second time.  Meanwhile, Major Baseball is bragging in television commercials about bringing recreation to minorities and people of different cultures.  Actually, they are locking Somalis out of our city parks.   Who owns Dunning Field?  It is those with ties to big money and ties to the mayor, not nearby residents or the District Council.  It is more people in white.

Who owns Target Field?  The county paid $300 million, but it is locked up the same as Dunning Field.  The Pohlads get $75 million extra dollars per year for this stadium that Hennepin County gave to them.  A gift of an extra $75 million per year.  A marketing budget, some of it abusive of Joe Mauer, tries to hide these facts.  Is it possible for me to shake the hand of Jim Pohlad?  If not, does he feel guilty about something?   

The Minnesota Twins used to create a sense of community with working class fans, local quirkiness and public use of public spaces.  With Target Field and its big money business model, “people in white” land grab public places and destroy our sense of community.