Fire Gardy

As we’re all well aware, the Twins’ time in the Metrodome is rapidly winding down. Finally, the Twins will be playing beneath bright blue skies rather than a marshmellow swastika. There’s been a lot of talk about how much more money will be available to the team once they’re in the new stadium — there have been plenty of complaints from the front office and the ownership over the years about how unfavorable their lease is and how signficantly it limits their ability to compete financially with other teams. How much more money, though, can the Twins expect?

I’ve frequently pointed out that the Twins are drawing really well this year — in the top 5 or 6 in both attendance and TV viewership — and are doing it in the 14th largest media market in the league. They should be generating a significant amount of revenue, and for some time I’ve been thinking that the front office is just complaining unnecessarily; they’re making plenty of money, and just aren’t being aggressive enough, or are valuing their profits more highly than they are the team’s success. It’s an easy trap to fall into, because it makes so much sense.

But it turns out that the Twins really do have a very unfavorable lease at the Dome; I’d assumed this for a while, and thought the money was going to the Vikings even when the Twins were the ones using the stadium. Instead, the beneficiaries of this lease are you chumps, the citizens of the state of Minnesota. According to some research by urban planner Judith Grant Long, analyzed by Baseball Prospectus’ Neil deMause, the Metrodome is the most public favorable stadium currently in existence.

The best deal, meanwhile, is an unexpected one: the much-maligned Minneapolis Metrodome, which turns out to have actually produced a $107 million profit for the people of Minnesota. It is, in fact, the only stadium in existence for which the public came out in the black.

That $107M began in 1982 and is in inflation-adjusted dollars, so it’s actually less than that in reality, but the point remains: the citizens of Minnesota have come out far better on the Metrodome deal than the Twins have, and far, far better than the citizens of any other state or city with a stadium — including those with “privately funded” stadiums.

government negotiators made sure to recoup their costs with a lease that guaranteed the public more than half of gross concessions revenues, one-quarter of stadium ad revenue, and 100% of parking fees. Even after paying for stadium operations and without collecting property tax, that still leaves the Metrodome as the singular case of a stadium that turns a public profit. (This may also help explain Twins owner Carl Pohlad’s incessant stadium demands* in the face of public disdain; notes Long, “Compared to the other owners, there’s no question why he’s a little peeved.”)

With the new stadium, those revenues will no longer go to the state, but will instead flow into the team’s coffers. It’ll probably make ownership happier, but it’s worth pointing out that we’re only talking about a few million dollars per year. It remains to be seen how much the team’s spending will increase. I anticipate it going up somewhat, but not game-changingly or anything.

* It’s worth pointing out that this article was written in 2005, before Carl Pohlad’s unfortunate passing and before the new stadium was agreed upon.

The most significant thing, I think, is that the fans keep coming out in droves and watching the games on television. If the Twins can start over-achieving their market-size, rather than under-achieving, it can only mean good things. And since I no longer live in Minnesota, the loss of the state’s income stream doesn’t hurt as much. (My taxes pay for the White Sox’s bloated payroll, thank you very much.)