The Twins have won 13 division titles (1969, 1970, 1987, 1991, 2002–04, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2019, 2020, and 2023), 3 American League Pennants (1965, 1987 and 1991) and the World Series in 1987 and 1991. The Twins moved to Target Field in Minneapolis in 2010.
The Minnesota Timberwolves brought NBA basketball back to Minneapolis in 1989 after a 29-year absence. The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960. The Timberwolves play in the Target Center. Women's basketball was added in 1999 with the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA.
On October 23, 2015, the president of the club, Bill McGuire, and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman announced that a privately financed soccer-specific stadium would be built on the vacant Metro Transit Bus Barn site in St. Paul's Midway neighborhood near the intersection of Snelling Avenue and University Avenue. The stadium is called Allianz Field, seats 19,400, and opened in 2019. The team began playing in the MLS in 2017.[10]
Basketball
Minnesota Lynx
The Minnesota LynxWNBA team began in 1999. In recent years, the Lynx have been the most successful major league sports team in Minneapolis and a dominant force in the WNBA, reaching the WNBA Finals in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017 and winning in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017.[11][12][13]
College sports
Since the 1930s, the Golden Gophers have won national championships in baseball, boxing, football, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, indoor and outdoor track, swimming, and wrestling.[14]
The Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, was the largest sports stadium in Minnesota from 1982 to 2013, and the only stadium in the country to have hosted a Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the NCAA Basketball Men's Final Four. Demolition started in January 2014 to make way for a new 65,000 seat clear roofed stadium for the Vikings which opened in August 2016.[17]
U.S. Bank Stadium was completed in August 2016, six spectator sport stadiums will be in a 1.2-mile (2 km) radius centered downtown, counting the existing facilities at Target Center and the university's Williams Arena and Mariucci Arena.[18]Target Field is funded by the Twins and 75% by Hennepin County sales tax, about $25 per year by each taxpayer.[19] The Gopher football program's Huntington Bank Stadium was built by the university and the state's general fund.[19] And the $1.061 billion U.S. Bank Stadium for the Vikings is funded by the Vikings ($563 million), State of Minnesota ($348 million) and the City of Minneapolis ($150 million).[20]
Other sports
Gifted amateur athletes have played in Minneapolis schools, notably starting in the 1920s and 1930s at Central, DeLaSalle, and Marshall high schools.[21]
Minneapolis has made it to the international round finals to host the Summer Olympic Games three times, being beaten by London in 1948, Helsinki in 1952 (when the city finished in second place), and Melbourne in 1956.
Professional sports are well-established in Minneapolis. First playing in 1884, the Minneapolis Millers baseball team produced the best won-lost record in their league at the time and contributed fifteen players to the Baseball Hall of Fame. During the 1920s, Minneapolis was home to the NFL team the Minneapolis Marines, later known as the Minneapolis Red Jackets.[24] During the 1940s and 1950s the Minneapolis Lakers basketball team, the city's first in the major leagues in any sport, won six basketball championships in three leagues to become the NBA's first dynasty before moving to Los Angeles in 1960.[21]
Pro soccer first came to Minnesota in 1976, when the Minnesota Kicks entered the North American Soccer League (1968–84), though the team folded in 1981. In 1994 pro soccer returned to the state after a thirteen-year absence, when the Minnesota Thunder gained entry into the upper level of the United Soccer League, which at the time held tier two classification from the United States Soccer Federation. The team enjoyed some league success, but folded due to financial difficulties in 2009. Manny Lagos, current sporting director at Minnesota United, was a celebrated Thunder player.
^Odum, Charles (October 7, 2011). "Lynx 73, Dream 67". WNBA Enterprises. Turner Sports & Entertainment Digital Network. Archived from the original on November 10, 2011. Retrieved October 28, 2011.