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New Twins TV Intro Mocked as Empty Stadium Steals the Show

The announced attendance at Target Field was more than 12,500 on Monday night, but it was very obvious that there weren't nearly that many fans at the stadium.
Joe Nelson|
The Twins were mocked for rolling out new player intros on TV amid a wide shot of an empty Target Field.
The Twins were mocked for rolling out new player intros on TV amid a wide shot of an empty Target Field. | Twins TV

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Minnesota Twins

The Minnesota Twins' attempt to do something fun on their television broadcast was met with mockery from fans on social media.

Instead of using a typical graphic with text to introduce the starters for Monday night's game against the Detroit Tigers, the Twins rolled out a Monday Night Football-style intro in which each player said their name and where they went to college or high school.

What riled up fans on social media was that the introductions were played over a wide shot of Target Field, which happened to have very few fans in the stands on a cold night.

"The Tens of Minnesota Twins fans at the game tonight missed this SNF style intro," Barstool Sports reacted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"More people in the lineup than the stands," a X user wrote.

"They played in front of bigger crowds during Covid," another user said.

"You need to stop the full stadium shots. It’s embarrassing," someone else wrote.

That's just a handful of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of snarky responses that littered social media after the sparse crowd was displayed. To be sure, no one was mocking the intros. They were pretty cool, but the fact that the Twins claimed Monday Night Baseball is better than Monday Night Football amid a wide shot of an empty stadium was a swing and a miss.

Why was the stadium so empty? There are plenty of reasons, including some fans perhaps choosing to stay home to avoid using expensive gasoline, it was a cold night with the wind chill in the 20s, and the NCAA men's basketball tournament wrapped up with Michigan playing UConn in the national championship game. All would be valid reasons to avoid going to the ballgame, but there is an undeniable truth that even some of the most diehard Twins fans are boycotting ownership.

The Pohlad family put the franchise up for sale last year, only to take it off the market to maintain ownership at the last minute. That, coupled with the Pohlads being considered cheap owners who cut payroll significantly after the 2023 team snapped an ungodly playoff losing streak and proceeded to stink in 2024 and 2025, have led to declining attendance.

Minnesota drew a total of 1,768,728 fans in 2025, marking a 25-year low for the franchise and the lowest in Target Field history. Through four home games this season, the Twins are averaging just 19,381 fans — and that's based on ticket sales, not the actual number of people who enter the gates.

In fact, the announced attendance at Target Field on Monday night was 12,569, but there's no way in hell there were that many people actually at the ballpark.

Tuesday's game against Detroit starts at 6:40 p.m., and the game-time temperature is expected to be around 43 degrees, with a wind chill in the mid-30s.

Oh, by the way, the Twins beat the Tigers 7-3 on Monday night...

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Joe Nelson
JOE NELSON

Joe Nelson has more than 20 years of experience in Minnesota sports journalism. Nelson began his career in sports radio, working at smaller stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before moving to the highly-rated KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. While there, he produced the popular mid-morning show hosted by Minnesota Vikings play-by-play announcer Paul Allen. His time in radio laid the groundwork for his transition to sports writing in 2011. He covers the Vikings, Timberwolves, Gophers and Twins for On SI.

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