Pohlad family looks to sell Twins after 40 years of ownership

MINNEAPOLIS — 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 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 choice, 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 seven grandchildren more than $1.5 billion, typically takes about six months, from identifying potential buyers to negotiating terms to receiving the approval of Major League Baseball’s other 29 owners. Carl Pohlad paid former owner Calvin Griffith $44 million when he bought the franchise in 1984, and it was inherited by his sons upon his death in 2009.

Adjusted for inflation, $44 million would be equal to $133.3 million in 2024.

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 franchises 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.

“For the past 40 seasons, the Minnesota Twins have been part of our family’s heart and soul. This team is woven into the fabric of our lives, and the Twins community has become an extension of our family,” Pohlad, 42, wrote in his announcement. “The staff, the players, and most importantly, you, the fans — everyone who makes up this unbelievable organization — is part of that. We’ve never taken lightly the privilege of being stewards of this franchise.”

Pohlad, who was elevated to executive chair of the team in November 2022 and became a fixture in the Target Field offices, echoed those words in February, when he declared that “we are not considering [selling]. We are in it for the long term.” He said at that time he expected the family would still own the team a decade from now.

What changed? Pohlad didn’t say in his statement — but the decision, of course, is not his alone. His father, Bob Pohlad, and his uncles Jim and Bill are the primary owners of the team, but the family is also involved in commercial real estate, movie production and several other ventures. The Pohlad Company, for instance, developed the 37-floor RBC Gateway building in downtown Minneapolis, which opened in 2022.

Money matters

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 a sale, 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 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, reached a crescendo this season when Joe Pohlad, facing a deep cut in the team’s television-rights payment, ordered the front office to reduce the player payroll by roughly $30 million.

Coming on the heels of the Twins’ first postseason series victory since 2002, the cuts were unpopular. Then the Twins’ September collapse, from a near-certain playoff position to fourth place in their own division, made those cuts even more painful, and the complaints even louder and angrier. Joe Pohlad’s insistence on the season’s final day that, “I wouldn’t make any other decision” only intensified the criticism.

Controversial ownership

Then again, the Pohlads are no strangers to boos from fans. Carl Pohlad, who built his fortune in banking, was initially a popular replacement for Griffith, perceived as miserly with money because baseball was his only business. And the family patriarch’s image was further burnished when the Twins won the World Series in 1987 and repeated the feat in 1991.

But Carl Pohlad’s popularity plummeted when he grew so adamant that the Metrodome was inadequate as the team’s home, he tried to sell the team three times. He offered in 1996 to sell half the team to the state of Minnesota in order to raise funds for a new stadium, and a year later signed a letter of intent to sell the team to Don Beaver, who intended to move the team to Charlotte, a plan foiled when a referendum to pay for a stadium there was defeated.

And in 2001, Pohlad agreed to accept $150 million from MLB to contract his team out of existence; it was only when Hennepin County Judge Harry Crump ruled that the Twins would have to pay their Metrodome rent even if they didn’t play that the scheme unraveled.

His descendants, however, have made clear their commitment to Minnesota and the Twin Cities since taking over. The Twins Community Fund has sponsored clinics for kids and their coaches, donated and renovated baseball and softball diamonds, and donated game tickets to youth teams and leagues. Just last week, the Twins were named a finalist for MLB’s Selig Award for Philanthropic Excellence.

Joe Pohlad repeated that sentiment in his statement Thursday. “We truly respect and cherish what the Twins mean to Minneapolis, St. Paul, this great state of Minnesota and this entire region,” it read. “… In so many ways, this team doesn’t belong to any one family — it belongs to all of you. It’s our objective to find an ownership group who all of us can be proud of and who will take care of the Minnesota Twins.”

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.