Post by The Vermont Bombers on Apr 17, 2016 22:06:37 GMT -5
Sellouts Equal Seats
Metropolitan Stadium to get Facelift after World Championship Season
If there has been one prevailing problem in Metropolitan Stadium it’s been seating. With only 30,637 seats in its current configuration, it’s one of the most cramped ballparks in the Major Leagues. This has been an ongoing issue for the Twins as their fan base has been steadily growing but is unable to enjoy the live experience of Twins baseball because the friendly confines of Metropolitan Stadium are so...confined. “We know that our seating arrangement is an enormous problem for our fans, as well as for us as an organization.” Team Owner Adam Costa said in a recent interview. “We need to fix that and we’re going to.”
Coming off of the franchise’s first World Series Championship and its second American League Pennant in four years, now is the perfect time for the team to expand the seating of their home. If both AL Pennant seasons showed anything, it’s that the team could sell out every game and still finish the season deeply in the red. With nearly 2.5 million in ticket sales last year, the Twins still had to turn fans away because there just wasn’t anywhere to put them. The team estimates that it turned away anywhere between 500,000 and a million fans because there just weren’t the seats to pace them in. That’s going to change this year.
The plan is to add 14,363 new seats. This will raise the seating total 45,000. Short of building a new stadium, this is the best option that the Twins have for getting more fans into the ballpark. The new seats will stretch from foul pole to foul pole in the outfield and will necessitate moving the scoreboard to the back of the new deck so as not to obstruct the view. The expansion will provide a 360 degree field of view for Twins fans to enjoy the game from.
In financial terms, this expansion will cost the Twins $32,181,500. This fee will include a down-payment of 16,630,927 from their Stadium Fund. The remaining $15,520,573 will be paid through a 3-year plan that will cost the team $5,173,524 for 1971 and 1972 and $5,173,525 for 1973. For a team that finished nearly $30 million in the red this season and nearly $24 million in the red when they won the AL Pennant and nearly the 1966 World Series, this expansion is badly overdue.
If all works out as planned the new seating will help the team recover from and then eventually avoid such frequent budgetary shortfalls. Even if the team only sells about 65% of the seats, the budgetary benefit is initially estimated to fall somewhere around 2.5 million dollars in revenue after the payment to the league for the expansion is made. At that rate of return the Twins are expected to bring in an extra 7 to 8 million in revenue from year four onward, provided the teams popularity continues. If the team can grow its popularity with the people of Bloomington and the State of Minnesota, and they execute a smart financial plan, the new seats could pay for a new stadium within a decade.
