With playoff hopes on the line, Twins' attendance in Marlins series was abysmal

The Twins drew fewer fans than the 120-loss White Sox on Wednesday.

Sep 26, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Twins pitcher David Festa (58) pitches against the Miami Marlins in the first inning at Target Field. / Matt Blewett-Imagn Images

The Twins came into this week's three-game series against the Marlins at Target Field with their playoff hopes on the line. They needed to win the series, ideally via a sweep, and get some help from other results to halt their six-week skid and sneak into the postseason.

Instead, they lost two of three to lowly Miami and essentially eliminated themselves from contention. And hardly anyone was there to see it happen.

In a series with the ultimate stakes, the Twins drew announced crowds of just over 19,000 on average over three games. On Wednesday, their attendance was 18,162 — which was a couple hundred fans fewer than the White Sox, who were playing to avoid their 121st loss of the season. It fell to 17,341 for the all-but-season-ending 13-inning disaster on Thursday, and as someone who attended that game, it felt a lot lower than that.

Multiple MLB teams are fighting for playoff spots or top seeds this week.

Wednesday attendance numbers:

Dodgers -- 52,310
Phillies -- 42,438
Tigers -- 32,463
Astros -- 32,219
Guardians -- 25,860
DBacks -- 23,767
White Sox -- 18,423 (fighting to avoid 121st loss)
Twins -- 18,162

— Phil Mackey 🎙 (@PhilMackey) September 27, 2024

Major League Baseball's overall attendance is on the rise for the second straight year in 2024, but the Twins aren't part of that improvement. They drew 1.974 million fans at Target Field last season and hoped to reach 2 million this year for the first time since 2019, but they're going to fall short of last year's number. The Twins have drawn 1.869 million fans through 78 home games, meaning they'd need to average 35,000 during this weekend's largely meaningless series against the Orioles just to get back to their 2023 attendance total. They obviously won't come anywhere close to that.

The reasons behind the step back in attendance aren't exactly hard to pinpoint — and are entirely self-inflicted. Coming off of the team's first playoff series victory in two decades, ownership decided to slash payroll by around $30 million for business reasons. That was an immediate slap in the face from the Pohlad family to the fan base that lowered morale before this season even began. As a result, the front office was constrained when trying to upgrade the roster in the offseason and before the trade deadline (and the moves they did make almost all flopped).

Then there was the television debacle. The Twins could've gone in another direction with their broadcast rights last offseason, but instead re-upped with the troubled Diamond Sports Group for another year. Not shockingly, Bally Sports' contract dispute with Comcast resulted in many fans being unable to watch games on TV for all of May, June, and July. That was another blow to the general interest level in the team.

Twins fans, as a collective group, don't deserve any blame for this year's slip in attendance. The people running the team brought it upon themselves. So perhaps it was fitting that as the Twins' disastrous late-season collapse culminated in a death blow in the 13th inning on Thursday night, hardly anyone was in the Target Field stands to witness it.

Even more disheartening is that there's little reason to believe the organization will do anything to fix these issues and invite better attendance in 2025.