TCF vs Target Field

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I am still up watching Sports Center and there were a few highlights from today's game between the Gopher's and La Tech. Mostly focused on Target Field it's self but is great for Gopher's baseball.
 

GoGophers2005 said:
Twins will NOT make money on walk up sales. If you don't have season tickets your not going to get into the place (at least the first few years).
Secondly, I think staffing the ticket counter actually offsets any tickets sold.

Where major league teams make their money is in season tickets, suites, and club level ticketing. In order to have these tickets you are sending your money into the Twins months in advance. Not the day of a game.
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The Twins have sold just over 24,000 season tickets for the season. The last day to buy season tickets is tomorrow. So, you'll be able to get tickets without having season tickets. You can log on to the team's webpage and purchase tickets to just about any game you want (except for marquee games, obviously) right now.

That said, you are right in that it will be rare the first year in terms of walk-up sales. Probably won't have many chances to walk up on game night and purchase a seat.
 

Thanks for resurrecting this thread. I miss reading Bronko's ravings.
 

I went to Target Field yesterday for the gopher game and I was blown away. The food options are at a whole diffrent level than any of us have experienced at sporting events in this town. That being said... You just can't compare a MLB stadium and a college football stadium. Apples and oranges. Love em both.
 

Schnauzer said:
I went to Target Field yesterday for the gopher game and I was blown away. The food options are at a whole diffrent level than any of us have experienced at sporting events in this town. That being said... You just can't compare a MLB stadium and a college football stadium. Apples and oranges. Love em both.
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I was there too yesterday. They are different animals. I love baseball, but there's so much downtime and it's such a slower pace that you need more distractions. Football stands on its own. I wouldn't want a sit down restaurant in TCF.
 


skoalvikings said:
Yes, TCF fits into the campus well, but I'm glad the Twins didn't build a park that was an exact replica of Camden--we've got enough of those around (Colorado, Detroit, Cleveland, etc., etc.). I think they kind of wanted it to blend in to the area rather than stand out.

You hit the nail on the head with the food comment. I had a steak sandwich and cheese curds (cheese curds with actual cheese!) today. The steak sandwich by itself was better than the sum of all food available at TCF. I really hope they get that straightened at TCF out for the upcoming season.
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you guys are trying to compare the number of total food options between facilities where one hosts 82 homes games a year and the other hosts 8 home games a season. there is no way they are going to be similar in their choice and breadth. also, in case anyone forget one is a college football stadium on a college campus and the other is a professional baseball stadium paid for in part by hennepin county and a multi-billionaire. it is liking comparing apples to oranges and is not an appropriate comparison to make at all.

i have season tickets to both tcf stadium and target field. from a pure stadium perspective i like tcf just a little bit more. not much, but just a bit more. that said....i think both are great and wonderful additions to the minneapolis sports scene.
 

The Ghost of Bierman said:
you guys are trying to compare the number of total food options between facilities where one hosts 82 homes games a year and the other hosts 8 home games a season. there is no way they are going to be similar in their choice and breadth. also, in case anyone forget one is a college football stadium on a college campus and the other is a professional baseball stadium paid for in part by hennepin county and a multi-billionaire. it is liking comparing apples to oranges and is not an appropriate comparison to make at all.

i have season tickets to both tcf stadium and target field. from a pure stadium perspective i like tcf just a little bit more. not much, but just a bit more. that said....i think both are great and wonderful additions to the minneapolis sports scene.
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I do have a question regarding the food - for you, or anyone that may know. You bring up a good point as to why there is so much selection at the Twins game, and vendors can make their year in 82 games.

I was actually wondering if anyone knows the regulations for food at TCF? I know their plan was to use Aramark all the time, but how exclusive is it? Can they add more vendors? I'm don't want to knock The Bank, but I really think they are selling themselves short by not having better food. I know I used to get a Dome dog every game at the Dome, and this past year, I believe I got a corn dog and tried the cheese curds...and that was it for the whole season. If anyone else is like me, eating before the games due to lack of good options, this could mean a lot more $ for the U.
 

I'm not heartbroken that TCF has dismal food. After all, college football entails tailgating before and after. And the U, more or less, is encouraging such tailgating. Also, more people will patronize the campus restaurants and bars if they know that the (non-premium) food at TCF isn't any good. I'm way too busy watching football, or the marching band, to eat anyways.
Baseball, on the other hand, is different. Not really a tailgating sport. Plus eating at a baseball game just seems more fitting, given the relatively relaxed nature of the sport. I don't need gourmet food at either, but I am glad that Target Field has the better food.
 

Target Field is a fine ballpark. As far as I could see, not a bad seat in the house. Still, it's apples and oranges to compare a football stadium versus a baseball stadium. I like them both, they both serve there purposes well. Hopefully, we won't be building a new baseball stadium anytime soon.
 



GopherLady said:
I do have a question regarding the food - for you, or anyone that may know. You bring up a good point as to why there is so much selection at the Twins game, and vendors can make their year in 82 games.

I was actually wondering if anyone knows the regulations for food at TCF? I know their plan was to use Aramark all the time, but how exclusive is it? Can they add more vendors? I'm don't want to knock The Bank, but I really think they are selling themselves short by not having better food. I know I used to get a Dome dog every game at the Dome, and this past year, I believe I got a corn dog and tried the cheese curds...and that was it for the whole season. If anyone else is like me, eating before the games due to lack of good options, this could mean a lot more $ for the U.
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Food is food, it doesn't matter whether there are 7 games, 81 games or just one game. Even the number of people at the game per event doesn't matter that much, there are plenty of minor leage baseball teams that have some fine stadium chow.

Businesses like Aramark attempt to provide the lowest grade food that people will buy. The more the competition, the more businesses are forced to up their game in order to sell their products.
 

MrGopher said:
I'm not heartbroken that TCF has dismal food. After all, college football entails tailgating before and after. And the U, more or less, is encouraging such tailgating. Also, more people will patronize the campus restaurants and bars if they know that the (non-premium) food at TCF isn't any good.
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This sounds like something right out of a hypothetical Maturi email:

"We are providing absolute crap for concessions because we want to encourage use of our expensive tailgate lots and the use of local restaurants and bars; and just to make sure you don't eat our food, we are going to have all sales tallied by hand by inexperienced volunteers. Thank you for your support of Golden Gopher athletics.--Sincerely, Joel"
 

After Saturday I will give both stadiums a thumbs up. 2 completely different venues though. TCF is a great college football stadium. Very UofM orriented, as it should be. Campus setting, brick construction, pretty expansive and out in the open. Beautiful college football stadium, has a distincly collegiate feel. Target Field is a true ballpark. Very intimate feel, great for watching baseball. The setting is quite different being downtown as it is and feels smaller because of it. I love that the dominating color is a soft forest green, very athestically pleasing. I know that they had space issues but I think the concourses are too small and the designs of the bathrooms were, in my opinion, not good. The placement of the diaper changing stations were uncomfortable for me when I was changing my son, and I'm sure uncomfortable for everyone who had to walk around me to get from the sink to the paper towel dispenser. Diaper rant over, it is a very nice ballpark, had a very similar feel to Kaufman, but even more intimate because it is surrounded by downtown as opposed to being in the burbs surrounded by parking lots. I would give TCF and Target Field both A's, but very different grading.
 

gopherguy05 said:
You are verging on Loonism there Husker...

During a game night there will be nothing to worry about at either stadium. At 3 in the morning you stand just as good a chance getting mugged across the street from TCF as you do from Target field.

If you are that worried, please stay in your outstate home and watch on tv and let us poor saps who live in the metro reap the benefits.... Good god you would think downtown Minneapolis is the ghetto to anyone who lives outside Hennepin or ramsey county.....
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Agreed. I live in Anoka County and talking to some people in my neighborhood, you'd think that gangs run rampant in downtown Minneapolis and to go there is taking your life in your hands. I even had a couple people argue against Northstar commuter rail because "it will bring the criminals out from the city."

As someone who rides that line with a couple thousand other professionals on a daily basis, I find that attitude amusing. But back to the issue about downtown and people not feeling "comfortable": I think it has more to do with...er...demographics than actual crime statistics. I'm not particularly accusing Husker70 of this but rather many of the people who share this attitude.

Bottom line, Minneapolis is cleaner and safer than the downtowns of most large cities.
 



year of the gopher said:
Agreed. I live in Anoka County and talking to some people in my neighborhood, you'd think that gangs run rampant in downtown Minneapolis and to go there is taking your life in your hands. I even had a couple people argue against Northstar commuter rail because "it will bring the criminals out from the city."
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I've worked with people who were terrified of going to lunch on a weekday in Uptown. Uptown, where the scariest thing is the prices at the antique stores. They were scared because they heard the word "Lake Street". Went to a dentist in Richfield, they were apalled because it was on Chicago Avenue... in Richfield, but Chicago Avenue nonetheless, and that was enough to scare them. Chicago Avenue doesn't even to through to Minneapolis from Richfield.

Minneapolis was recently listed by Forbes Magazine as the safest city in the country. But people hear about a convenience store in Minneapolis being robbed, and they look at that as evidence of how scary it is. But if a convenience store is robbed in the suburbs, well, that's an abberation.

Now, if you want scary, take a drive through Florida City. Miami has much higher crime than here, but there are some parts of the Miami metro area that you really don't want to ever be in.
 

RodentRampage said:
Food is food, it doesn't matter whether there are 7 games, 81 games or just one game. Even the number of people at the game per event doesn't matter that much, there are plenty of minor leage baseball teams that have some fine stadium chow.

Businesses like Aramark attempt to provide the lowest grade food that people will buy. The more the competition, the more businesses are forced to up their game in order to sell their products.
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sorry, but i really do think that you are wrong here. it absolutely DOES matter the number of total games played at a facility. there is very likely a correlation between breadth of choice (especially from independent food vendors) and the number of games played per year. as gopherlady said if you are an independent vendor it makes your investment much more worthwhile (i.e. you can make your year) to do it if you can sell 82 times a year at a professional baseball stadium vs. 8 times a year at a pro/college football stadium. why do you think it is only target field that suddenly has all of these independent and unique vendor/food options? it is because the vendor can make that work much better financially than they can selling 8 times per year at a vikings or gophers football game. you basically proved my point in noting that you can get a pretty diverse selection of concession choices at minor league ball parks. again that is because there are many games per season and often several games per week.

i don't have a horse in this fight from a concession management company standpoint as i don't know who "aramark" is from the guy down the street. the correlation to unique food choice is more likely tied to the total number of games played a year than to who the concession management company is. who a food vendor is plays some role, but not as much as you are implying it does. most of these concession management companies (including aramark) will make these unique/independent food vendor options available if the independent food vendors are clamoring for it. i have a feeling that there are not a ton of independent food vendors clamoring to get into college football stadiums around the country considering the investment required on their side (inventory, probably have to pay the facility owner a "slotting fee" just to sell in the stadium) in relation to the limited number of college football games played per season.
 

The Ghost of Bierman said:
sorry, but i really do think that you are wrong here. it absolutely DOES matter the number of total games played at a facility. there is very likely a correlation between breadth of choice (especially from independent food vendors) and the number of games played per year.
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My problem with TCF isn't so much breadth of choice but lack of quality. Everything is pretty much average or well below. I understand that they can't have the same myriad of choices that the Twins will have, but they could produce a cheese curd that contains cheese.
 

skoalvikings said:
My problem with TCF isn't so much breadth of choice but lack of quality. Everything is pretty much average or well below. I understand that they can't have the same myriad of choices that the Twins will have, but they could produce a cheese curd that contains cheese.
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Good point, skoal. And the other side of that coin is that more events in a facility do not guarantee wider range of choices or better quality. Twins + Vikings + Gophers did not add up to a positive food experience in the Dome. It appears that Twins management deserves credit for seeing that intelligent decision-making regarding food services at Target Field can be a win-win situation.
 

ofergopher said:
Good point, skoal. And the other side of that coin is that more events in a facility do not guarantee wider range of choices or better quality. Twins + Vikings + Gophers did not add up to a positive food experience in the Dome. It appears that Twins management deserves credit for seeing that intelligent decision-making regarding food services at Target Field can be a win-win situation.
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you are right there, but if i am not mistaken i don't even think it was the same concession management company for all three teams. that alone was a huge mistake. the monstrosity that was the metrodome and how it was managed amongst the three teams that once played there is not a good comparison/baseline to use on any level......especially when it comes to food.

bottom line......the metrodome was simply a clusterfuch in just about all areas. i just hope the vikings can eventually get out from under it and soon.
 

I have tickets to both and made it to Target field already. Both are top-notch-no doubt about it. I would have to give the early nod to Target field just because of the way it is run.

Let's be honest...TCF stadium is run about as poorly as can be. Concessions are as bad as can be. Starting with the food all the way to collecting money = baffling. The lines getting in = baffling. Promotions = invisible. I wonder how the University runs at all when looking at how the sports programs are run from top to bottom.

Target field seems well organized so far. That could change quickly when the real season starts but it appears to be a well run machine.
 

After thinking about Target Field more, I do have one more complaint other than the diaper changing rant that most people on this board probably don't care about.

Where I ended up watching the game, far down the left field line, I couldn't see the video board. I didn't even realize this until last night I was talking to a friend and he asked how the video board was, then it dawned on me. Had a great view of the MPLS and St Paul handshake cutout though...
 

Difference in management between the facilities is simple: One is operated (oversight) by a public institution. The other is operated by a private company. For profit vs non-profit. The non-profit still has to generate revenue but the inherent nature of that institution doesn't lend itself to taking care of the fine details. I'm not surprised at all that the early returns regarding food, service, management, etc all favor Target Field over TCF and nor should you be surprised.

I've yet to step foot inside Target Field but I feel like I have with the amount of time I've spent looking at pictures, videos, etc. Saying that, it'll be hard for me to compare the facilities regardless because as many have said already, one is designed for college football while the other for MLB. I love TCF and how it was designed by HOK to go along with its placement on campus but I just don't think a fair comparison can ever be made.
 

I love both stadiums, as far as design goes. I don't think TCF takes a back seat to any college football stadium, and Target is probably the nicest field I've ever seen. I think they're both perfectly designed for what they are. TCF is brick, and fits into campus perfectly. Target is a pure baseball experience. They're both exceptionally well designed, in my opinion. However, I agree that Target Field is run much better than TCF. I braced myself for long lines at the concessions, or to get in, and did not see any problems. The people at the concessions knew what they were doing, and the food, as has already been stated, was exceptional.
 

A lot of people complained about long lines at the concessions at Target Field, the Twins have acknowledged that they have work to do.
 

tikited said:
I have tickets to both and made it to Target field already. Both are top-notch-no doubt about it. I would have to give the early nod to Target field just because of the way it is run.

Let's be honest...TCF stadium is run about as poorly as can be. Concessions are as bad as can be. Starting with the food all the way to collecting money = baffling. The lines getting in = baffling. Promotions = invisible. I wonder how the University runs at all when looking at how the sports programs are run from top to bottom.

Target field seems well organized so far. That could change quickly when the real season starts but it appears to be a well run machine.
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man, i love how some of you insist on comparing apples-to-apples an on-campus college football stadium vs. a professional sports stadium owned by a billionaire that will host 82 major league baseball games a year.

yeah, that sounds like a real fair comparison to make. :rolleyes:
 

RodentRampage said:
A lot of people complained about long lines at the concessions at Target Field, the Twins have acknowledged that they have work to do.
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this is true. i have been in target field a couple times now. there were and will likely be long lines at target field this season too. just like it was at tcf stadium. i have tickets to both gopher football and the twins.

what it boils down to is that there are just some really clueless rubes in this state who are not able to view things reasonably that just look for stuff to b!tch about. they are the d-bag dan barreiro loving, cretin, meathead bobos who call into KFAN to rag on everything under the sun. they complained about slow lines when TCF Stadium first opened and they will complain about slow lines when Target Field opens.

bottom line: there are a lot of annoying, whiney people in this state who really don't deserve jack sh!t, but they all seem to think are entitled to perfection everywhere they go. and when they don't get it they cry about it to anyone who will listen.
 

Bronko Nagurski Gopher said:
couldn't have said it better. this out-state (read people who refer to minneapolis/st. paul as "the cities" or say "we are going to head down to "the cities" this weekend") and sometimes ex-urban attitude that some have regarding downtown urban centers as a "war zone" is beyond rediculous.

frankly, i would be more worried about hanging out in a place like wright or carver county at night considering all of the conceal-carry gun nuts that probably live out that way who can't wait to get a round off at someone screaming "well he was on my property.....i got my rights". ;)
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Even though I grew up in one of those places where we referred to 'the cities' this post made me laugh. And you're probably right about the getting shot part.

Anyway, done properly, on the Mississippi River where it was originally intended in 1997 and where there was more room, it would have been better with a roof. By 2006, the reality is that there was only one site left, it was too small for a roof, and no one wanted to pay for it. So the choices were, build Target Field as is, do nothing and root for an indoor version of the Pittsburgh Pirates for the next 30 years, or let the team move away. Of those 3, I think they made the right choice.

It simply did not make sense for the Twins to foot the bill. They make about $20 per fan in revenue. There are 81 games per year. It's a 30 year lease. The roof costs $100 million. $100 million/30/81/20 = 2,057. They would have to draw 2,000 extra fans to every game for 30 years to pay for the roof. Some of you are being a little insulting about the out-state fans not being worth anything. But there surely wouldn't be 2,000 more of them at every game for 30 years. As is evidenced this year, they're selling out anyway.
 

Both Great... Target Field gets the nod.

I have had extensive tours of both, and watched games at TCF last season. We are lucky to have both.
Target Field already has character and there hasn't even been a game there yet. That's why it gets my vote.
Minnie and Paul shaking hands after Twins home runs, c'mon!!! That's awesome!
 

The Ghost of Bierman said:
man, i love how some of you insist on comparing apples-to-apples an on-campus college football stadium vs. a professional sports stadium owned by a billionaire that will host 82 major league baseball games a year.

yeah, that sounds like a real fair comparison to make. :rolleyes:
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I'm not the one who started the thread with the question: which is better? I just gave my 2 cents. If you don't like the question, don't post in the thread. Maybe then you won't have a reason to complain about people complaining. :rolleyes:
 

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