Only one Minnesota sports owner has negative ratings. It's the Pohlads.

The Pohlad family is the only professional sports ownership group in the state with net negative favorability ratings, according to a Minnesota Community Survey of 1,172 adults conducted Sept. 25 to Nov. 6, 2025.

The owner with perhaps the lowest unfavorable rating? Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold, whom the Pohlads recently announced as a new minority owner (Pioneer Press).

The Snapshot

The Pohlads stand alone: Across five Minnesota men’s professional sports teams in our survey, Twins ownership is the only group with net negative favorability among Minnesotans: 20% favorable vs. 31% unfavorable. At the time of the survey, the Twins were wrapping up a brutal season that earned an ‘F’ from ESPN.

How other owners compare:

• About 4 in 10 Minnesotans view the Wilf family favorably, making Vikings ownership the most popular in the state.
• Roughly a third hold favorable views of Wild owner Craig Leipold and Timberwolves/Lynx owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez.
• Minnesota United FC owner Bill McGuire has the lowest profile: just 17% of Minnesotans rate him favorably, while more than three-quarters say they don't know enough to offer an opinion.

Across all five teams, about half or more of Minnesotans say they don't know enough about ownership to render a judgment.

RELATED: Where do Minnesota’s pro sports teams rank in popularity? Includes the Lynx, Frost and Aurora FC (January 2025)

More bad news for Twins ownership: Only the Pohlads received net negative ratings, and it came among both Minnesota’s general public and the team’s own fans.

Plus, negative views of the Pohlads rise with household income and education.

Wealthier Minnesotans are the most critical: those with $150,000+ household incomes give the Pohlads a -33 net favorability rating. Among high-income Twins fans, 55% hold an unfavorable view.

The backdrop

The Pohlads have sold a partial stake in the Twins. This helps clear $500 million in debt and may set the stage for a future sale of the team. For now, the Pohlads retain majority ownership (The Athletic).

This spring, the Minnesota legislature may consider extending a 0.15% Hennepin County sales tax through 2059. A portion of revenues would go toward maintenance of Target Field (Star Tribune).

The Pohlads came under intense criticism last summer after trading away 10 players midseason. The moves shed millions in payroll and fueled speculation that the team would soon be sold. (Star Tribune).

Last year, the state legislature denied the Wild's request for public funds to cover part of its arena renovation (Star Tribune).

The Timberwolves want to build a new arena in the coming years (Star Tribune).

The breakdown

Minnesota’s sports owners generally don’t elicit strong views in either direction. For each team, a plurality of Minnesotans say they don’t have an opinion of its owner.

If an opinion is held, it’s often a “soft” favorable view. For example, here’s the Wilf family among Minnesotans: 28% mostly favorable, 13% very favorable.

The Pohlads stand out here, too. They’re more likely to raise the passions of Minnesotans, and they do so in a negative direction:

• About 1 in 5 Minnesotans (19%) hold strongly unfavorable views of the Pohlads, compared with 12% mostly unfavorable.
• For other team owners, overall unfavorable views are in the single digits.

Team-by-team highlights:

• Wilfs(Vikings): Highest overall favorability. Gender gap among fans: 32 points
• Leipold (Wild): Among lowest unfavorable ratings. Slight Republican lean among fans
• Lore & Rodriguez (Timberwolves/Lynx): Strong fan support relative to general public
• McGuire (United FC): Lowest visibility. Immigrant fans rate ownership 26 points higher than Minnesota-born fans
• Pohlads (Twins): Only team with net negative ratings among both general public and fans

The splits

Gender, not partisanship, drives opinion gaps. The most consistent pattern across all five teams isn't political. It's gender.

Fan gender gaps by team ownership:

• Wild: 36 points (men 71% favorable vs. women 35% favorable)
• Vikings: 32 points (men 75% vs. women 43%)
• Timberwolves: 30 points (men 68% vs. women 38%)
• United FC: 29 points (men 63% vs. women 34%)
• Twins: -5 points (men 26% vs. women 31%)

The Twins stand out here, too. For the other four teams, men are far more favorable than women, which is consistent with men's higher exposure to sports news. For the Twins, the pattern flips: male fans are less favorable than female fans, suggesting that closer attention to Twins ownership news breeds criticism, not support.

Overall, women show dramatically higher "don't know" rates across all teams. This pattern aligns with national research: A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found men were about three times as likely as women to be “superfans,” and a 2023 St. Bonaventure/Siena Research Institute survey found men were more than twice as likely to be “avid” fans.

Worth noting

In a polarized America, Minnesota Democrats and Republicans agree on their sports team’s owners. Across all five ownership groups, partisan favorability gaps are in the single digits among both the general public and fans.

This contrasts sharply with national trends, which show that views about wealthy people polarize along party lines.

For the Pohlads, this means that their negative ratings cannot be attributed to partisan grievances. Negative views toward the Pohlads cross party lines.

What this tells us

The Pohlads face a credibility problem that cuts across Minnesota's political divides. Partisan polarization or regional tensions don't drive their negative ratings. Instead, the pattern suggests that Minnesotans who follow the team most closely, including wealthier and more educated residents, hold the dimmest views.

This could complicate any legislative debate over extending Hennepin County's sales tax for Target Field maintenance. Lawmakers may be reluctant to champion public funding for owners who lack public goodwill, particularly among the higher-income constituents who tend to vote in off-year elections and contact their representatives.

The gender gap finding offers a broader lesson: Minnesotans largely agree on their sports owners regardless of party. In an era of deep polarization, professional sports ownership appears to occupy neutral ground where local identity matters more than political tribe.