Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise the Minnesota Twins has launched a new subscription season ticket plan in an effort to boost its diminishing attendance figures.
Twins passes for the 2019 season will allow fans to enter Target Field for as many as 79 games for a flat fee.
The MLB team has had subscription plans in the past with its ballpark-pass programmes but the difference this year is that fans can opt to have a seat.
“We’ve had some nice success with the subscription product the last couple of years. We view it as a trend – the future of ticketing,” said Twins president Dave St. Peter, according to the Minnesota Star-Tribune. “Fans want flexibility, to be assured of a seat whenever they want to come out to the park.”
The subscription will only be available for the next few weeks and will be billed in monthly instalments no matter how many games a fan chooses to attend. The Twins pass will be valid for 79 games, not including Opening Day and Joe Mauer Day.
A 79-game plan without a seat will cost fans $294 (£223/€261), while an upper-deck seat is priced at $494, and a lower-deck seat is $894. To break that down, a fan attending every game could get into the ballpark for $3.72 a game, and could have an upper-deck seat for $7.52 or a lower-deck seat for $11.32.
Single-game tickets at Target Field can cost anywhere from $25 to $70 each.
“It’s based on fan research. There’s a new generation of fans who just want access to the ballpark, who like to watch the game from various different spots, or hang out at the Bat & Barrel (public bar) or Hrbek’s,” said St. Peter.
Attendance figures for the Twins dropped to 1,959,187 last season, the team’s lowest since 2004, when it still called the Metrodome home. The average attendance per game sat at 24,188, just over half of Target Field’s 40,000-seat capacity.
St.Peter continued: “We recognise we need to find ways to connect with younger fans, to push our attendance back to a level that’s representative of the market.”
Tickets will be electronic and non-transferable, so they won’t appear on the secondary market. Pass holders can request a seat one week before the game, or show up at the park.
Image: Andy Witchger
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