
An announced crowd of 37,355 watched St. Thomas defeat St. John's 20-17 in a football game Saturday at Target Field that destroyed the previous Division III high-water attendance mark by almost 20,000 fans.
The game came together thanks to a perfect storm, so to speak, of circumstances. When the Twins' 2017 schedule was being put together in the summer of 2016, MLB had them on a 10-game road trip at the end of September that freed up Target Field. That schedule gap aligned with the already-scheduled St. John's vs. St. Thomas game and came on a weekend when the Gophers football team had a bye.
Given those parameters, the nature of the rivalry between the schools — ratcheted back up in recent years by the resurgence of St. Thomas — and the curiosity of the first-ever football game at Target Field, organizers were optimistic they could draw a big crowd. But 37,000-plus?
"When the game was conceptualized and talked about originally, we were pretty confident we could push toward 25,000," said Twins President Dave St. Peter. "But I don't think any of us believed we'd push beyond 35,000."
Dan McKane, the MIAC's executive director, was even more blunt when asked about the crowd that watched his conference's most notable football rivalry. "I didn't think we'd get anything close to (37,000) when it was first announced."
But they did, and given the success of the day from the standpoint of logistics, finances and most importantly crowd enthusiasm — "I have not heard a single negative thing about the game yet," McKane said Monday — the logical question becomes: When are they going to do this again?
In regards to football at Target Field, we already know the date of the next scheduled game: North Dakota State and its rabid fan base from Fargo will host Butler at Target Field in the Bison's season opener in two years on Aug. 31, 2019.
St. Peter said Monday he has had conversations with several other regional schools about possibly playing football at Target Field.