10-10-2024, 01:15 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-10-2024, 01:18 PM by purplefaithful.)
Pohlad family will sell Twins after 40 years of ownership
Joe Pohlad rejected the notion last February that his family might consider selling the Twins, saying “it’s not something that interests us.”
It is now.
Pohlad, grandson of the family patriarch who bought the state’s Major League Baseball team four decades ago, announced on Thursday that “after months of thoughtful consideration, our family reached a decision this summer to explore selling the Twins.”
Pohlad declined through a team spokesman to speak publicly about that decision, but he broke the news to the team’s roughly 400 full-time employees at a Target Field meeting Thursday morning, then issued a news release afterward.
A sale, which could net Carl Pohlad’s three sons and eight grandchildren more than $1.5 billion, typically takes about six months, from identifying potential buyers to negotiating the terms to receiving approval of Major League Baseball’s other 29 owners. Carl Pohlad paid former owner Calvin Griffith $44 million when he purchased the franchise in 1984, and it was inherited by his sons upon his death in 2009.
Only the Steinbrenner family, which took control of the New York Yankees when George Steinbrenner bought the team in 1973, and Jerry Reinsdorf, who purchased the Chicago White Sox in 1981, have owned their MLB franchise longer, among current owners, than the Pohlads.
In fact, if a sale of the Twins is completed, it would mark the first time since 1919 that the team, founded as the Washington Senators in 1901 and moved to the Twin Cities in 1961, is owned by someone other than the Griffiths or Pohlads.
Forbes magazine estimated the family’s combined worth at $3.8 billion in 2015 — nearly a decade ago. But while the value of the Twins has increased by 3300% or more since the family acquired it, that enormous profit can only be realized by selling, similar to a retiree whose entire net worth is tied up in his home.
This also may be a particularly ripe moment to maximize the sale price. Only four teams have changed hands in the past 12 years, each of them for a reported billion dollars or more — the Miami Marlins for $1.3 billion in 2018, the New York Mets for an MLB record $2.475 billion in 2020, the Kansas City Royals for $1 billion later that year, and just last June, the Baltimore Orioles for $1.725 billion.
“There’s a fair amount of pent-up demand. There have been fewer clubs on the market in baseball than there have been in the NBA or the NFL,” said a source with expertise in sports franchise values. “There is only one team on the market, the Minnesota Twins, and there are people out there who want to own baseball clubs.”
The Twins’ inexpensive long-term lease on Target Field — the original 30-year lease has 15 seasons remaining, and Hennepin County last spring opened negotiations that would extend it another 20 years — figures to make the franchise particularly appealing.
Another possible factor in deciding to sell: The Pohlad family has come under intense criticism over the years for what many Twins fans say is a focus on profits over championships. That criticism, more pointed and palpable in today’s social-media environment, crescendoed this season when Joe Pohlad, facing a deep cut in the team’s television-rights payment, ordered the team’s front office to reduce the player payroll by roughly $30 million.
There is no indication that the team has approached, or been approached by, potential buyers, but Pohlad said in February that the family’s intention was that the team remains permanently in Minnesota, where the Twins have drawn more than 2 million fans 19 times since the Pohlads bought the team. The family said it has retained New York investment bank Allen & Co., which has an extensive history of facilitating sports transactions, to help it scrutinize its options.
And “exploring” a sale is no guarantee that one will be agreed to; the Angels and Nationals have both been put up for sale in the past four years, and neither team’s owner actually consummated a deal.
Source: Startribune
Joe Pohlad rejected the notion last February that his family might consider selling the Twins, saying “it’s not something that interests us.”
It is now.
Pohlad, grandson of the family patriarch who bought the state’s Major League Baseball team four decades ago, announced on Thursday that “after months of thoughtful consideration, our family reached a decision this summer to explore selling the Twins.”
Pohlad declined through a team spokesman to speak publicly about that decision, but he broke the news to the team’s roughly 400 full-time employees at a Target Field meeting Thursday morning, then issued a news release afterward.
A sale, which could net Carl Pohlad’s three sons and eight grandchildren more than $1.5 billion, typically takes about six months, from identifying potential buyers to negotiating the terms to receiving approval of Major League Baseball’s other 29 owners. Carl Pohlad paid former owner Calvin Griffith $44 million when he purchased the franchise in 1984, and it was inherited by his sons upon his death in 2009.
Only the Steinbrenner family, which took control of the New York Yankees when George Steinbrenner bought the team in 1973, and Jerry Reinsdorf, who purchased the Chicago White Sox in 1981, have owned their MLB franchise longer, among current owners, than the Pohlads.
In fact, if a sale of the Twins is completed, it would mark the first time since 1919 that the team, founded as the Washington Senators in 1901 and moved to the Twin Cities in 1961, is owned by someone other than the Griffiths or Pohlads.
Forbes magazine estimated the family’s combined worth at $3.8 billion in 2015 — nearly a decade ago. But while the value of the Twins has increased by 3300% or more since the family acquired it, that enormous profit can only be realized by selling, similar to a retiree whose entire net worth is tied up in his home.
This also may be a particularly ripe moment to maximize the sale price. Only four teams have changed hands in the past 12 years, each of them for a reported billion dollars or more — the Miami Marlins for $1.3 billion in 2018, the New York Mets for an MLB record $2.475 billion in 2020, the Kansas City Royals for $1 billion later that year, and just last June, the Baltimore Orioles for $1.725 billion.
“There’s a fair amount of pent-up demand. There have been fewer clubs on the market in baseball than there have been in the NBA or the NFL,” said a source with expertise in sports franchise values. “There is only one team on the market, the Minnesota Twins, and there are people out there who want to own baseball clubs.”
The Twins’ inexpensive long-term lease on Target Field — the original 30-year lease has 15 seasons remaining, and Hennepin County last spring opened negotiations that would extend it another 20 years — figures to make the franchise particularly appealing.
Another possible factor in deciding to sell: The Pohlad family has come under intense criticism over the years for what many Twins fans say is a focus on profits over championships. That criticism, more pointed and palpable in today’s social-media environment, crescendoed this season when Joe Pohlad, facing a deep cut in the team’s television-rights payment, ordered the team’s front office to reduce the player payroll by roughly $30 million.
There is no indication that the team has approached, or been approached by, potential buyers, but Pohlad said in February that the family’s intention was that the team remains permanently in Minnesota, where the Twins have drawn more than 2 million fans 19 times since the Pohlads bought the team. The family said it has retained New York investment bank Allen & Co., which has an extensive history of facilitating sports transactions, to help it scrutinize its options.
And “exploring” a sale is no guarantee that one will be agreed to; the Angels and Nationals have both been put up for sale in the past four years, and neither team’s owner actually consummated a deal.
Source: Startribune
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& may I add: Fire Rocco! 
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