Best — and most expensive — Target Field seats in for $5.25M upgrade

Up to $5.25 million in upgrades are coming to Target Field’s most premium seats after the Minnesota Ballpark Authority signed off Tuesday on a refresh to the Major League Baseball stadium.

Before the start of the 2026 season, the Champions Club — a 430-seat luxury section 50 feet behind home plate — will have new concessions equipment, furniture and floors. The more opened-up area will also create additional seating indoors, thanks in part to taxpayer dollars.

“One shortcoming we have in there is we don’t have enough space for everybody to sit and eat, particularly if there’s a rain delay or something like that,” said Matthew Hoy, senior operations advisor for the team. “This will help us expand out into some of the little nooks and crannies within the space to create additional seating.”

Financing for the project will come from the ballpark authority’s capital reserve fund, which Hennepin County and the Twins contribute to annually. It will be the first time money from the fund is going toward upgrades not accessible to all guests, according to the team.

Champions Club tickets are “the best seats Target Field has to offer” for its 81 home games a season, per the Twins website. In addition to extra-wide, padded chairs, some of the amenities club-goers enjoy include fine dining, valet service, a private entrance, upscale bathrooms and views into the indoor batting cages.

Season tickets range from $22,842 for rows 6 through 12 to $33,238 in the front. A single game in the Champions Club can cost a couple hundred dollars. The average cost of a Twins ticket last season was under $35, per Statista.

Officials from the Twins and the authority said the 16-year-old Champions Club needs an overhaul to remain competitive with other luxury spaces in the market and across the league.

Since 2023, at least 11 other MLB clubs have completed upgrades to equivalent high-end spaces or have work planned for next offseason.

“Our job, as the public asset manager, is to work with the team to make sure everything in this building is top-tier,” said Dan Kenney, executive director of the Minnesota Ballpark Authority (MBA). “They’ve been studying this space behind home plate for two years, and it’s due some investment — because all the other spaces have been touched."

The Twins have paid for “the lion’s share” of capital improvements to the field since it opened in 2010, Hoy said.

The team exclusively funded more than $64.3 million in capital improvements, while the authority’s capital improvement fund contributed an additional $23.5 million to projects. The Twins are also responsible for covering all the ballpark’s operating expenses, which are more than $25 million a year, according to team materials.

The Champions Club project will be more of a refurbishing compared to major renovations completed in recent years, such as Gate 34 and Truly on Deck, team officials said.

Hoy noted Target Field will require additional updates in the future as it nears the end of its second decade. Some of the facility’s technology is original to 2010, the year the stadium opened. Fans have also expressed a desire for more grab-and-go concession stands, he said.

For the past two legislative sessions, Hennepin County officials asked state lawmakers to extend the 0.15% sales tax that raises about $55 million a year for Target Field’s construction debt. Legislators did not grant the request — or any asks from professional sports teams in the Twin Cities — this year.

Under that proposal: Once Target Field is debt free, the MBA would receive about $10 million a year for upkeep, and the Twins would extend their lease until at least 2059. Hennepin County Medical Center and North Memorial Health Hospital would split about $40 million annually to help pay for facility upgrades and care for patients without insurance.

“This is a million-square-foot facility that the county is heavily invested in, in addition to transit right next door,” Kenney said. “It makes perfect sense to have an answer for the next 20 years beyond the initial terms.”