Big Picture: Hating Carl Pohlad

By M. Haas

Carl Pohlad bought the Minnesota Twins for $36 million dollars in 1984. He built a reputation among baseball fans as being one of the stingiest owners in the game. Although he was worth over $2 billion dollars in the 90's, the Twins continued to struggle on the field and sported one of the lowest payrolls in the game. Also in that period, Pohlad and the organizational brass began lobbying for a brand new stadium, one that would allegedly keep them competitive and assure the Twins long-term future in the state of Minnesota.

Sid Hartman would constantly voice the publics displeasure with the state of the team and the low payroll. Sid would ask Pohlad to increase the payroll enough for the Twins to sign a few free agents and make the product on the field better. The legend says that one day, Hartman received a package from Pohlad containing a vile of red ink. This was to illustrate that if he operated as Sid suggested, he would lose money.

Over the years, the state of Minnesota became accustomed to Pohlad's money grubbing ways. They began to accept the fact that the Twins just don't make enough money to buy free agents or have a high payroll.

In 2001, with no stadium deal on the horizon and the Twins without a playoff appearance in 10 years, Carl Pohlad agreed to sell the team to MLB, at which point they would contract the franchise. This event shut up all the people who claimed Pohlad had saved the Twins in '84 by buying them before someone who wanted to move the team bought them.

The jadededness and blackmail finally paid off for Pohlad in 2005. At the groundbreaking ceremony for the new stadium, Twins fans cheered for their elected officials, as well as Carl Pohlad and Bud Selig. Pohlad is chipping in $125 million for the stadium, and that seems to please the general public.

Twins President Dave St. Peter has gone on record saying that the new stadium will generate around $40 million dollars more than the Metrodome in annual revenue. He also excited Twins fans by saying that the payroll could increase by as much as $20 million dollars per year.

As discussed on this website before, the Brewers are the model franchise for how a stadium generates money and happiness not for the players, taxpayers or fans, but for the owners. Pohlad may not make money on an annual basis from the Twins, but you better believe he'll be making money hand over fist when the new stadium opens. I'd bet that the Twins will make a lot more than $40 million more in revenue, and spend a lot less than $20 million on payroll. The Pohlads will make over $20 million dollars per year for as long as the stadium is sold out. (2-3 years?)

But the big money will come when the Pohlad family sells the team. The franchise could be worth as much as $250 million dollars. With that money factored in, that annual red ink doesn't look so red anymore.

Carl Pohlad's biggest day as a businessman was the day the stadium deal was approved. It assured him and his family that the Twins will make them very rich, whether they keep the team or sell it.

And that's fine.

I can be a Twins fan without them buying free agents. I can be a Twins fan while knowing that some of my hard earned cash is going toward a stadium that I'll have to pay a lot of money to acess, and will line a billionaires pockets.

But what isn't fine is that the Twins, for the first time in over 10 years, actually have a player worth holding onto, and that we can't re-sign him.



http://www.startribune.com/twins/story/1442609.html




.