As Minnesota Twins Go Up For Sale, Pohlad Family Set For Incredible Profit

Ownership of the Minnesota Twins announced on Thursday that they would explore selling the franchise. If so, they would see incredible profit.

In a statement released today, Twins Executive Chair Joe Pohlad laid out the plans on behalf of the Pohlad family.

“After months of thoughtful consideration, our family reached a decision this summer to explore selling the Twins. As we enter the next phase of this process, the time is right to make this decision public,” he said.

The Twins have retained Allen & Company to explore the sale.

The Twins were purchased by the late Carl Pohlad in 1984 for $44 million, or $133.52 million in today’s dollars when adjusting for inflation. The most recent Forbes valuation sets the club as ranking 21st of the 30 clubs at $1.46 billion.

Since the Pohlad purchase, the club has seen ups and downs on the business side, most notably Carl lent the Twins into part of a scenario in which then-commissioner Bud Selig would dissolve both the then-Montreal Expo and Twins to balance out the league and contract the total number of clubs to 28; an ill-fated attempt scenario that saw legal challenges. At the time the Twins engaged in the effort after not being able to secure funding for a new ballpark.

In 2006 Hennepin County quickly sprung a public financing effort for $355 million using sales tax that combined with $200 million from the Twins eventually provided Target Field to be built and opened in 2010. The ballpark is owned by the Minnesota Ballpark Authority.

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The timing of the sale comes as the Twins have been competitive in the standings, and profitable as an organization. According to our Forbes valuations, the club saw an operating income – a form of profit – at $19 million for 2023 with revenues of $342 million.

The value of the club grew +5% from the 2023 t0 2024 valuations. Since 2015 the value of the club has increased +63%.

The average MLB club is worth approximately $2.4 billion. The Twins will likely fetch between $1.5-$2 billion on the open market. The most recent sale was the Baltimore Orioles for $1.725 million, but included a stake in Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).

The Twins are one of several teams that will see their local media rights shift in 2025 due to the bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group which owns the Bally Sports branded family of regional sports networks. For 2025, Major League Baseball will take over production and ink distribution deals for the club. It is unclear what local media rights revenues will be for the Twins be until that time.

Still, the Pohlad family will reap incredible profits. The difference between the 1984 inflation-adjusted purchase price and a low-end headline sale price of $1.5 billion would be a difference of $1.367 billion.