Some momentous highs—but always equal-to-worse lows
Prior to Y2K, the best way to judge a team’s wealth was to count the number of times their turnstiles tumbled. The intervening years have brought TV/media contracts that often outpace stadium patronage.
Yet, take a listen to Baseball’s National Anthem one more time—presented here by the inimitable Buck O’Neil…
“Take me out to the ballgame”. Radio, television, and smartphone screens may be fine most of the time—but there’s something about being at the ballpark that transcends medium. Even if overall attendance is more a measure of fan support than wealth acquisition now, it remains a strong indicator of overall interest.
Of the things that draw paying cranks through the gates, “competitiveness” and “experience” are paramount. Let’s look at how each Minnesota Twins ballpark has done in those regards and what the attendance averages may reveal:
Metropolitan Stadium (1961-1981)
Photo by MLB via Getty Images
- Competitiveness: Wonderful in the 1960s—Hall of Fame talent and a World Series appearance!—but dreadful in the 1970s.
- Experience: The first live Major League Baseball seen by many in Minnesota, so that counts for something. The ballpark itself? More nostalgic than great—kind of a minor league park retrofitted just well enough to be big league.
- Average Attendance: 7th out of approximately 12 American League teams (the AL went from 10 to 12 to 14 teams in that span).
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (1982-2009)
Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/MLB Photos via Getty Images
- Competitiveness: Two championships (1987 & 1991) in five years, plus a prolonged 2001-2009 span of solid clubs. Alas, the early 1980s & most of the 1990s were bottom-of-the-barrel rough.
- Experience: Other than general fan atmosphere and the Dome Dog? Very poor. Minnesotans want to be outdoors in the summer months and this was a multi-purpose park built mostly with football in mind. Bad sight-lines and sort of a circus atmosphere (white roof, baggie, concrete turf, etc.). Were it not for the rings and the Gardy-era fun bunch, the Dome would have been an unmitigated disaster.
- Average Attendance: 10th out of 14 AL teams.
Target Field (2010-Present)
Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/Getty Images
- Competitiveness: Rather poor, sadly—or at very least inconsistent (2010, 2015, 2017, 2019, & 2023 being the good years). A maddening amount of malaise (2011-2014), Total System Failure (2016), & epic collapse (2022 & 2024) mixed in.
- Experience: Absolutely top-notch—often ranked in the top five of all MLB ballparks. A beauty from Day 1, the Pohlad ownership group has kept Target Field spick-and-span (more so than its primary denizens, to be honest). A true MN summer destination.
- Average Attendance: 7th out of 14.5 AL teams (AL went from 14 to 15 teams in this span)
The take-home point? The Minnesota Twins have regrettably never matched a beautiful ballpark with a sustained spate of winning. Metropolitan Stadium established the great tradition of MN baseball in the 1960s—but then was left to languish in the 1970s. The Metrodome hoisted our heroes’ heights—but then became a baseball laughingstock in the mid-to-late 1990s. Target Field is a hardball haven—but has been hard-pressed to harbor two consecutive positive seasons.
Right now, the Twins rank 12th of 15 AL squads in 2025 seats filled. With final school bells & sustained warmer weather right around the corner—plus a recent uptick in winning!—this is often when attendance hay is harvested. So, I hesitate to nail the coffin closed with four months of baseball to play.
Photo by David Berding/Getty Images
I’ll end with this: There is a silent majority of Twins fans “from Ada to Zumbrota” (as the old commercial once chimed) that want to come out and see the Twins play. But as Jor-El tells his Kryptonian son:
“They can be a great people, Kal-El—they wish to be. They only lack the light to show them the way.”
With all the things that must be packed into Minnesota’s summer months, the Twins must be competitively relevant to truly pack the park—hopefully the case going forward in 2025.