Though the Minnesota Twins have been in his family for more than four decades, Tom Pohlad never envisioned becoming control owner and CEO.
He was on a different career path, chairing parent Pohlad Companies, while other members of his family were responsible for running the Twins. The road to his current role began in October 2024, when Pohlad led a 10-month effort to explore a sale of the franchise. The process ultimately ended without a transaction, but with a restructuring of ownership that elevated him to control owner and CEO.
In December 2025, four months after the family decided to pivot from a sale to securing minority investors, the Twins brought on three limited partners: Glick Family Investments, Värde Partners co-founder and co-Executive Chair George G. Hicks and Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold.
The deal was reportedly for more than 20% of the franchise at a $1.75 billion valuation, taking down in the process a significant portion of the team’s $400 million-$500 million debt that had accumulated largely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Simultaneously, due to the relationships that Pohlad had already cultivated with the limited partners, the family decided to change its third-generation leadership structure, with Tom succeeding his brother Joe as executive chair and his uncle Jim as control person.
“I never thought I’d be in this spot,” Tom Pohlad, 46, told Sports Business Journal. “It was rather unexpected how it happened.”
Now six months into his tenure, Pohlad is wearing multiple hats, living and dying with seemingly every pitch from his first-row seat in the Champions Club at Target Field, and moving aggressively to restore the credibility of the franchise and the trust of the fan base.
“I wasn’t going to be an owner that was just sitting in the owner’s box,” said Pohlad, who has already thrown on a poncho and watched from his seat adjacent to the home dugout rather than opting for indoor seating. “I am surprised at how invested I am in every single out and at-bat. Everything feels like a playoff game to me.”
‘He’s all in’
Pohlad quickly embraced his new role. He said he wants to be highly communicative, visible and inquisitive, “especially at this moment, when I’m trying to learn the business.”
Accountability is key as well, he said. “I want people to be accountable, and what I mean by that is mistakes are certainly acceptable. If we’re not making mistakes, we’re arguably not being bold enough or innovative enough. But if something isn’t working, we’ve got to be able to pivot quickly, and I think that’s something our organization has been missing in the past. We’ve hung onto things too long.”
“He’s super passionate. He’s engaged. He’s got a relentless commitment to building a winning organization. Instantly, he’s challenging us to think bigger.”
— Sean Moore, Twins EVP, chief revenue officer
The staff has taken note.
“He’s super passionate. He’s engaged. He’s got a relentless commitment to building a winning organization,” said Sean Moore, Twins executive vice president and chief revenue officer. “Instantly, he’s challenging us to think bigger.”
Added Twins strategic adviser Dave St. Peter, formerly the team’s president for over two decades: “He’s all in.”
Pohlad has opted to balance running the day-to-day operations in lieu of hiring a president of business operations, at least for the time being, so he could learn the business faster. He’s also been willing to put himself in front of the media and fans, partly a function of his personality.
“He hasn’t hidden from anything,” said Kip Elliott, Twins executive vice president, chief administrative officer and chief financial officer. “He has admitted a lot of his family’s mistakes and the team’s mistakes in the last few years, and has acknowledged we’ve got to be better.”
The team’s performance of late, mixed with Pohlad’s public-facing approach, can collide. In April, one fan wearing a “Sell The Team” hat and sitting a couple rows behind Pohlad had an exchange with him that gained traction on social media.
“Every now and then, do I get frustrated with how people choose to take out their emotions? Of course,” Pohlad said. “But I know it’s rooted in a good place. And I think the vitriol that we see from our fans is nothing more than passion for the sport of baseball and passion for the Twins, and that’s an amazing opportunity for us.”
Twins fans’ frustration is evident. They endured 18 consecutive postseason losses from 2004 to 2023, and more recently, months of uncertainty over a potential sale, with the team failing to make the playoffs the past two years.
Hovering around .500 nearing the All-Star break in the American League Central Division, Minnesota could end up playing meaningful baseball in September, a welcome sight. Yet fans just want to see payroll climb. According to Sportrac, the Twins sit 24th in the majors at $105.7 million. Attendance has also lagged. Through 41 games of the home schedule, the team ranked 25th in attendance (20,130 fans per game), which would be its lowest average since moving to Target Field in 2010.
Nevertheless, the franchise is getting creative to bring fans to the ballpark, offering a $2 pregame beer promotion and a credit incentive program for season-ticket members — up to 20% per win they attend — to give back to their most loyal supporters and increase renewal rates. While sponsorships have grown year over year in each of the past four seasons, season-ticket sales have been a struggle.
The financial collapse of the regional sports network model, which paid the team $54.8 million in 2023, also hurt from a revenue standpoint. The team moved to MLB Media in 2025 at a lower figure.
“We want to deliver value to our fans, and that’s hard to come by when you’re not winning baseball games,” Pohlad said. “It’s an olive branch. We want to be a championship-caliber team and a championship-caliber organization. That doesn’t happen in one season, but as I say a lot, it does start with one season. And we need to bring people back into the ballpark.”
Pohlad has his sights set on further renovations to Target Field, including the build-out of a five-year master plan following the $5.25 million facelift to the Champions Club and the upgrades to speed sales at concession stands.
The ballpark, he believes, needs to increase premium space, create more social spaces in sections that are sparsely populated on game days and improve the clubhouse and other player facilities. It would also help to have more enclosed areas for people to go between innings during the colder months.
There is also a long-term plan on the baseball side, including building a culture that players and their families want to be a part of, instilling a commitment to winning and improving development of position players. The team said recently it had no plans to deal outfielder Byron Buxton, who owns a full no-trade clause and doesn’t plan on waiving it with the hope of spending his entire career in Minnesota.
“We just want this to be a place where players, particularly homegrown talent, want to be Twins for life,” Pohlad said. “And when we find ourselves in a competitive window, we’ve got to do something meaningful at the trade deadline to build on the potential of that team and build on momentum.”
Learning curve
When navigating his vast position, Pohlad leans on an executive leadership team that includes: EVP and General Manager Jeremy Zoll; Elliott; Moore; Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer Jason Lee; and Dustin Morse, senior vice president of communications and public affairs. He also leans on his family.
“It’s impressive how he balances the two hats as owner and CEO, but he’s really doing a nice job of separating the two but combining them in a way that makes things efficient for our leadership team, and I feel like we’re moving at a much faster pace under Tom,” Morse said.
He is also taking advantage of the different skill sets and perspectives that the limited partners bring to the table, while staying in regular contact.
“I don’t want to be a situation where we’re only interacting four times a year [at board meetings] and those are the moments when we’ve got big decisions to make and they seem monumental,” Pohlad said.
Pohlad also has a goal to meet with every MLB owner one-on-one over the next 12 to 18 months. This comes as owners face labor uncertainty as the collective-bargaining agreement expires this year.
“The fact that I am the youngest [owner] by a very wide margin is somewhat intimidating,” Pohlad said. “Just doing that will get me comfortable with being in the room with them and ultimately getting to a place where I can be a value-add at the table.”
As for what the future holds on the labor front, and the potential for smaller-market teams to close the payroll disparity, Pohlad responded, “When I get to a point where I can look myself in the mirror and say all the revenue that’s available, we have, and all the dollars therefore that we can put on the field, we are, then I think it’s time for us to start worrying about what other, larger-market teams are doing.”
But he’s certainly invested in what comes next.
“Anybody would be lying if they’re not wondering what’s coming in the year or two ahead,” Pohlad said. “But I’ve got my hands full right now, and that’s my focus. When I’m at the MLB meetings and meeting with other ownership, I’m just trying to get up to speed and get a better understanding of the challenges and the opportunities.”
While it’s early, and he’s still going to have to back up his words with actions to the fan base, Pohlad’s fresh perspective has breathed new life into the organization.
“He’s going to continually question why we do the things that we do, and are there ways that we can do them better,” Moore said. “And there’s some beauty in him being so new to baseball, because it makes us, on a foundational level, re-explain why we do it, and then that might lead some of our teammates to say, ‘Why do we do it like that?’ And that’s a credit to him putting the time and effort in.”
