Last September, I wrote that the Minnesota Twins were on pace for their lowest full-season attendance since Target Field opened in 2010. They got there, finishing the 2025 season with 1,768,728 fans through the gates and setting a new low for a full season at the ballpark.
Unfortunately, that record lasted exactly one year.
Minnesota drew just 1,733,203 fans to Target Field in 2026, another new low and 35,525 fewer than attended in 2025. The decline looks even more dramatic when compared to 2023, when the Twins drew 1,974,124 fans while winning the American League Central and finally snapping their long postseason losing streak. Three years later, nearly a quarter-million fewer fans are coming to Target Field.
There is one wrinkle in the 2026 total. The Twins played one of their 81 home dates at the Field of Dreams site in Dyersville, Iowa, leaving 80 games at Target Field. Those 80 games averaged 21,665 fans. Even that number needs some context. MLB's announced attendance figures reflect tickets distributed rather than a literal count of the number of people physically sitting in the stands. By mid-September, the Twins were averaging 21,137 in announced attendance, but Bring Me The Sports noted that the figure appeared inflated compared with how many fans were actually in the ballpark most nights. Season-ticket holders who stay home and other unused distributed tickets can still be represented in the official figure, meaning the actual number of people inside the ballpark on a given night can be lower than the attendance number suggests.
By September, the Twins were headed for their lowest non-COVID attendance since 2000, when they averaged just 12,355 fans during a 69-93 season. The final 2026 average came up a little from where it stood then, but not enough to keep the Twins from setting another Target Field low.
So yes, 2025 really was rock bottom at the time. The Twins just managed to dig a little deeper.
Twins' final announced attendance — aka tickets sold/given away — this season: 1,733,203
— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) September 27, 2026
That is 35,525 fewer than last season and ranks 25th out of 30 teams.
It's the Twins' lowest announced attendance since 2000 at the Metrodome, with Tom Kelly managing and David Ortiz at DH.
The Twins tried to get fans back to Target Field in 2026
It's worth acknowledging that the organization knew attendance was a problem and tried some new things in 2026. The Twins introduced fan-friendly promotions, including $2 beers, snacks, and hot dogs on weekends, along with other events and incentives to make a trip to Target Field more appealing. Some of those ideas were popular, but they weren't enough to overcome the larger issue.
After the season, Twins owner Tom Pohlad indicated that improved performance on the field will be an important part of rebuilding attendance and that the organization would eventually like to return to crowds totaling around 2.5 million fans per season. The Twins finished nearly 767,000 short of that mark at Target Field in 2026.
That's the limitation of trying to repair a broad attendance decline through concessions and promotions. Cheap beer can make a night at the ballpark more attractive, and a giveaway might help draw a larger crowd for an individual game, but neither is likely to bring hundreds of thousands of fans back over the course of a season. Winning might. Just a thought.
The season-ticket problem should sound the alarm
The Twins also entered 2026 dealing with a weakened season-ticket base, a problem Pohlad discussed after the season while addressing the organization's attendance challenges. That may ultimately be more significant than any single-game attendance number. Season-ticket holders provide a reliable foundation across an entire schedule, while single-game buyers are much more dependent on factors like weather, opponent, promotions, and how well the team is playing. Once that season-ticket base begins to erode, rebuilding it is a much bigger job than finding a way to sell a few thousand extra seats on a Friday night.
The timing is not difficult to understand. The Twins followed their memorable 2023 playoff run with an 82-80 season in 2024 that ended in a brutal September collapse. Then they went 70-92 in 2025. Minnesota improved to 77-85 in 2026 and spent parts of the season hanging around the Wild Card race, but still missed the postseason for a third consecutive year. Fans who stopped buying tickets over that stretch were given relatively little reason to reconsider.
Not all Twins fans may not have stopped caring
There is at least one encouraging piece of evidence for the Twins: the drop in attendance does not appear to mean fans have completely tuned out. Pohlad reported that Twins.TV viewership increased roughly 12 to 15 percent in 2026, while the arrivals of prospects such as Walker Jenkins, Kaelen Culpepper and Emmanuel Rodriguez gave fans something new to watch late in the season. That creates an interesting contrast. Fewer people are buying tickets, but more people are watching the team on television. The audience may still be there, but the Twins have not convinced enough of them to make the trip to Target Field.
The product on the field is certainly part of that, but it is not the only factor. Concerns about downtown Minneapolis and personal safety also come up frequently in fan discussions about attending Twins games. It is difficult to measure exactly how much that has affected attendance, but it is clearly one reason some fans choose to watch from home instead. Readers who expand Aaron Gleeman's attendance post above will see replies making exactly that point.
That brings us back to the concern we raised last September. The Twins entered 2026 needing to stop a historic attendance slide, and instead they established another record low. Promotions didn't fix it. A somewhat better season didn't fix it. Increased television interest didn't translate into more people coming through the gates. Now the problem belongs to 2027.
Give fans a team they believe is worth showing up for.
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