Meet Meka Morris, the VP behind the financial success of MLB’s Minnesota Twins valued at $1.4bn

The Minnesota Twins, an American professional baseball team, is looking to make more money. According to Forbes’ ranking of the Most Valuable MLB Teams, teams like St. Louis, Colorado, and Milwaukee made more than the Twins last season, with the Cardinals leading the way with $358 million in revenue.

Two years ago, amidst falling revenue, the Twins decided to hire Meka White Morris, who was given the task of bringing in more money for the club, according to Forbes. In 2021, she was hired as the first chief revenue officer of the Minnesota Twins, making her one of the highest-ranking Black female executives in Major League Baseball.  

“A chief revenue officer is to support all things revenue,” Morris told MSR in an interview. “We look at every place that the organization makes money. Is there a way to think outside of the box? Is there a way to maximize all opportunities from a revenue perspective?”

According to Forbes, she helped Twins make north of $260 million, up from $111 million in 2020 during the pandemic although the club plans to exceed its record revenue of $297 million from 2019. What is more, since she was hired, Twins has added corporate partners like United HealthCare, and Evolv, a security firm, and expanded a contract with U.S. Bank. 

Morris was hired into her current position due to her aggressive and impatient attributes, which fit into the vision of the Pohlad family, the owners of the Minnesota Twins. Forbes noted that she inherited much of her attributes from her father, Jo Jo White, the Boston Celtics legend who helped the Celtics win two NBA championships. 

Her father passed away in 2018. She credits her dad, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015, for imbibing in her the spirit of competitiveness.

Before joining the Minnesota Twins, Morris was with the Cleveland Cavaliers as a corporate sale accountant. Morris got her urge to compete as a sales accountant and after leaving the Cavs, she worked with the Charlotte Hornets, Las Vegas Raiders, and entertainment companies like Live Nation, and Legends, Forbes said.

Morris is a native of Boston and has a B.S. in Journalism and Strategic Communications from the University of Kansas. While at Kanas, she was a track and field athlete for the Jayhawks. 

Following the police killing of George Floyd, Minnesota became the central point for social unrest and Morris almost didn’t accept her role with the Twins. But she realized that refusing it will be at variance with her attributes.

“If you’re going to make real change in any facet of your life, you are going to have to jump in the fire and go into the lion’s den, so to speak,” she told Forbes. “If there was ever a place to make change, for people who look like me doing it in baseball, in Minnesota, I can’t think of a better combination of things that can drive real change for people of color and Black women in sports and entertainment.”

There were discussions about diversity in corporate America following the killing of Floyd and today, MLB has five C-suite executives at the club level including Morris.