American Association baseball returning to Minnesota with new Blaine team
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The American Association of Professional Baseball is adding an expansion team to Blaine at its new Farm sports and entertainment district.
The Farm is a $750 million development that will feature a 5,000-seat baseball and event stadium and a Scheels store with a Ferris wheel, candy shop and 16,000-gallon saltwater aquarium containing more than 600 fish.
It’s an “entertainment-based district” worth $1 billion and one of the largest projects currently under construction in the state, according to Blaine Mayor Tim Sanders.
The Farm, a 70-acre development, is located right next to the National Sports Center, the world's largest amateur sports facility. The Farm is expected to open in early 2028.
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Sanders said the city has provided conduit funding and is looking for ways the district can generate revenue once it is operating to cover as much of the cost as possible without relying on taxpayers.
“[We’re] really designing the district to be self-sustaining as much as possible,” Sanders said.
He said plans for The Farm include summer and fall concert series, an outdoor music venue and possibly a winter carnival. It’s also expected to create more than 1,100 permanent jobs and 450 apartments.
“The whole goal is to keep activity and to keep events coming all throughout the year, so people have something to do. And the economic model supports itself for the stadium,” he said.
Bader Development is co-developing the project with Elevage Development Group.
Bader Development president Robb Bader said, “Blaine has always been the sports capital in Minnesota” due to the success of the National Sports Center, which attracts millions of people yearly.
“It's really about entertainment and a place to gather as a family or just a couple, or whatever demographic you lie in,” he said. “There'll be public areas where you can just come enjoy a concert — small concert, big concert, whatever it is.”
The American Association is a Major League Baseball Partner League comprising 12 teams, with clubs from Winnipeg to Cleburne, Texas. The league says its television audience is expected to exceed 20 million viewers in 2026.
Schaub said they’ve been looking to add an expansion team to the Twin Cities area ever since the St. Paul Saints left the league in 2020. He said the National Sports Center was a big factor in bringing an expansion team to Blaine.
“That National Sports Center is a catalyst for this because the amount of visitors in the direct demographic we're looking for from a fan base and activity feeds all of this,” Schaub said. “It's an economic win for the city; it's an economic win, really, for the region to bring it here to Blaine, and it has to have those partnerships together to work.”
He said the American Association brings 300 to 500 part-time jobs a year and expects the same for Blaine.
“If you look at economic development websites of cities, one of the first things they show is the professional baseball team that's in town. It attracts jobs, quality of life attracts jobs — and we're a big part of that,” Schaub said.
