So get mad at me. I want a new Stadium deal for the Vikes.

I grew up pitching an occasional game for the kid's baseball team my father coached. As a girl, this was just part of my family, having a grandfather who also had played in a professional Team for awhile. As I got older, I madly detested all sports going the arty farty route then eventually could begin to find a few sports that I liked. First it was skating, then a few more winter sports, then bike racing through beautiful landscapes that I would never be able to see first hand. Eventually Curling rose to the top.

Football was rather exciting offering to hold my attention far more than any game the Twins could possibly play. At least I say that for "me". Was a Vikings fan, then not, then was, then a Packers fan because I began to respect Brett's playing, then when we got him, back to being a Vikings fan again. I suspect that if we get to the Super Bowl again and if we loose, that old Minnesota (not) nice will kick in and people will get nasty and down in the mouth, but for me, it has been a dream come true. It is just that I have been in the Dome and it truly truly sucks in just about every aspect unless you like to be claustrophobic, loose your balance at the seating layout or better yet, love hurting your hearing permanently like I did. Great location though.

I don't see the economy getting any better and for that fact, when the Twins got their deal, our economy wasn't that great. I just resented that they would get such fabu treatment when I feel stats like this make me feel that they do not deserve it nor the rabid amount of pay that they get.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20090406&content_id=4139614&vkey=pr_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

I am very patriotic in my own way and care about the economy. Our household is on the edge financially big time. But....I have watched the Vikings get the bad end of the deal for years and I can rationalize all the jobs that would be created and kept if their site was developed, from construction, to employing staff, janitors, supporting businesses, food related industries, the list goes on. Yes, it is a for-profit industry but so is pretty much all sports. I keep thinking that there has to be a way to keep them here. Can't they share part of the NEW Twins Stadium and put the money into a roof? Of how about the NEW TCF one? I think it decadent that they can't share at least. Monies pooled together could make for a dramatic facility.

Nope. I expect that the landlords of the "Big Marshmallow" want to keep their money coming in at the expense of a hugely enjoyed sport. I cannot afford tickets but love to watch them at home while calling my father on the phone long-distance and saying "Hey dad! Didn't I tell you we needed Brett?

Right now HCMC doesn't even have enough funding to treat uninsured patients, and the Vikings are whining about not getting a new stadium? Screw 'em. It's just entertainment. If they want a new stadium they can build it themselves with money they borrow from a bank, like every other business.

If they're tired of it they can build a new one themselves.

The Hennepin County Board has said they will raise property taxes 3% to help cover HCMC's shortfall, but that won't cover even half of it. If they turn around and raise taxes to pay for a football stadium they should be tarred and feathered.

You got some feathers?

we need to round up some pitchforks and torches as well.

If they vote to fund the damn Vikings stadium I think a nice little riot would be in order.

and we can probably get a deal on the tiki torches this time of year (unless the public wakes up and there's a sudden off-season run on them!)

A lot of us remember that dome being crammed down our throats.

What are we missing?

I read a news report done during the baseball strike back in '94... turns out that people spend the exact same amount of money on entertainment even without baseball in play, they just spread it around on other stuff at an array of other venues, and on stuff other than $8 beers and $5 hotdogs.

:shrug:


If they want a new stadium, that's fine. If they want to freeze their asses off in December and January, that's their privledge. But these multi-millionaires can pay for it themselves. Form a vanture capitalist group for the financing. Sell shares like the Green Bay Packers, if the NFL will change the ownership rules.

Or else use the existing stadium, which is structurally sound, conveniently located, and seats plenty of people.

IT WOULD WIN!!!! The Vikings are Minnesota and Minnesota is the Vikings

to subsidize millionaires and let people die for lack of medical care.

If Marx were alive today, he'd say, "Sports are the opiate of the people."

The Vikings are THE embodiment of Minnesota? REALLY?

You may love them, but rest assured, they do NOT love you back. They'd pack up and leave in a minute if someone gave them an offer. And if they did that, I'd say "Good riddance. Now maybe we can spend tax money on something that's actually NECESSARY."

pays Minnesota income tax, most of them pay property taxes (on some pretty damn nice property), and if they buy so much as a pack of gum in the state they're paying sales tax too. Now this is not a "poor rich, treat them nice or they'll leave" post, because I'm not advocating they get a break. I'm saying that allowing the Vikings to relocate puts us in a deeper budget hole, even if only by a "small" amount. Now you've got less money to save HCMC.

Professional sports teams do bring a lot to an area and generate quite a bit of revenue. This shouldn't be viewed as a zero-sum game.

That's the point. Yet they want a handout.

What's next? Raising the sales tax so that everyone associated with the Vikings can all buy new cars?

If I saw a homeless person and Wilf both spare changing passersby downtown, I know who I'd give money to. That's the situation the state is in.

The Vikings aren't the only ones who benefit. We all do.

Raising the sales tax so that everyone associated with the Vikings can all buy new cars?

Not sure what that red herring is supposed to mean.

If I saw a homeless person and Wilf both spare changing passersby downtown, I know who I'd give money to.

And I also said that this isn't the zero-sum game you're making it out to be.

took a look see at the facility. If the mechanicals are good, why not build an additional "outer ring" that will allow for a bigger concourse and more bathrooms, then place the "expensive boxes" over that area inside. Ditch the retractable roof and put a solar paneled and glass and steel roof over that with vents that open up to relieve some of the pressure and sound. Re-space and replace the seats. Hire artists to come up with designs for the interior and exterior walls that are "relief" or something. From Minnesota. Hire landscapers to plant some trees and green around it. Donate a portion of the unfilled tickets each season to Charities for kids. Like the Ronald McDonald House or something.
Use the facility year round for concerts, Dog Shows, events, other sports also. Ask people in the public, who want to donate and buy a brick or a tree or as solar panel and then find a matching donor for it. Just kickin some ideas.

1) We can either have a Vikings stadium

or

2) We can keep HCMC running at its current level


Which would you vote for?

I fear that the selfish suburbanites who write comments in the online version of the Strib would characterize the patients at HCMC as "deadbeats" and "illegal immigrants" and gleefully vote for the stadium, just to see the HCMC patients suffer.

In fact, with the state so short of money, that IS the choice we realistically face.

We'd raise taxes for the Vikings but not for the most vulnerable members of our community?

That is not the Minnesota I grew up in, but it seems to be the Minnesota I live in now, thanks to all those red meat types from the Sunbelt.

I don't care how much you like football. It's not actually IMPORTANT. It's a leisure pastime.

I don't expect the state to finance my hobbies, and there's no reason why sports should be considered sacred.

and HCMC is only ONE of the unmet public needs in this state.

which is to "make everything as bad as possible for the Dems" so that people will be set up to think that the Republicans need to be back in office. Pawlenty tragically scares me.

I'd like to see it happen. Preferably one with a retractable roof so it can be used year-round for events like the Metrodome hosts. In fact, the dome's namesake (a fierce liberal if there ever was one) had a comment about keeping Minneapolis from becoming a "cold Omaha" by making sure our sports teams had decent places to play.

put an actual roof on one of these places plus maybe other additional improvements, then the facility would be completed and used year round like the Dome is. I don't know why they singled out just the Twins when they did for a new Stadium. It was thoughtless and not frugal and showed poor planning for the future.

It should have been possible to build a Metrodome replacement that would have worked for both the Twins and Vikings. There are going to be some mighty cold April (and potentially October) games for the Twins.

of jobs that additions could be made to be "Green" invested such as Solar. That would definitely give Minneapolis a boost nationally profile wise.

I can't quite see Humphrery thinking a sports stadium was more important than providing care to the neediest Minnesotans.

He also said: "It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped."

He made no mention of professional athletes or millionaire team owners in that statement.

establishments, all Museums, etc.....

I wasn't aware that restaruants and movie theaters were receiving any tax money.

I used to work for a small company, we did not get any tax breaks. Bigger outfits, like the MOA may get them - but the smaller an enterprise is, the less likely they are to get any special considertions.

the Vikings could get a huge tax break for building the stadium on their own ("investment in new facilities") and hiring all those people ("employee wages and benefits")--on their own.

big outfits get - like what MOA got from Bloomington. I don't have a problem with legitimate business expenses being deducted - but that isn't special treatment either.

No funding for the Vikings should mean no funding for the Guthrie and every theater and arts group out there. MPR also falls under that. The Vikings are my theater and no matter what you think they affect the image of the state a lot more than the Guthrie does.

events affordable to the general public.

The Walker Art Center has one free night a week. The Guthrie lets you get rush tickets. If you go to the library, you can pick up a ticket that entitles you to free admission to one of about a dozen museums. You can be a volunteer usher at a theatrical or musical performance and get in free.

Tickets to the Vikings-Bengals game in December start at $15, sure sounds reasonably priced to me. You can also get a job as an usher and get paid to watch the game. Sounds a lot better than ushering for free over at the museum. Also, how about all the low paid employees who count on the extra income the make working at the game? Didn't think about them, Did you? This is just a fact. A lot more people care about the Vikings than care about every museum in the state. That may be hard for you to accept but it is a fact.

The Vikings are privately owned by people who can afford to build their own stadium.

There was even a request from the owners of the Mall of America a while ago for state financing to build an addition. Fortunately, it went nowhere.

Did everyone have healthcare? Every state agency flush with cash?

Just want to understand how exactly times were "different" then.

and the state agencies were better off. I was in my twenties at the time, and a definite chill came over everything after Reagan's election, and especially after all the Sun Belt types moved up here for the "quality of life" that they didn't want to pay for.

~12%.

Reagan's election was in 1980.

So again, what was so different about 1976?

There was still some pride in a the quality of life in Minnesota and a sense of community. The poverty rate may have been the same but the people were still able to find housing and you didn't have as many people having to use food shelves then. I was working for a social service agency then, as bad as we thought things were then, it was nothing compared to what's going on now.

You're kidding yourself if you think Humphrey would have pushed for a taxpayer financed stadium while the poorest of the poor were being thrown off the programs that keep them going.

I love the Twins and I would hate to see them ever leave Minnesota but I'm still angry about having to pay for their stadium.

Without a vibrant social platform, why would people even want to live here and pay taxes? This platform includes things like the arts, museums, nightclubs, and yes, sports. If you're going to bellyache about the lack of funding for HCMC, well then you're going to have to bellyache about ALL funding other than what's going to HCMC. Do you want arts programs cut? Environmental? Or is it just things that OTHER people like that you want to abolish?

people moved here because of the "quality of life" but they don't want to pay the taxes to maintain it - that's the problem.

I don't want the Vikings abolished but I do not want my tax money going to build them a stadium. I'm sick of tax money being used to subsidize millionaires. If you want to contribute to a Vikings stadium, send their owner a donation. Remember, they're currently playing in the stadium they wanted - even if they get a new one now, they'll just start whing about wanting another one 20 years from now.

As I said, I love the Twins, but I object to tax money being spent on their stadium; the Pohlads should have paid for it as they're the ones who'll see the benefit from it and the same holds true for the Vikings.

some are asses and some are not. I think he is trying to be part of this State and to create a good team. I have no doubt he will put in money. But I think something should be worked out. The Dome is a shit hole.

If they don't like it now, they can remodel or find themselves a new place, but either way, the taxpayers can't afford it.

about the HCMC turning into a shithole, and the real problem and desperation that'll cause for desperate, ill people, than whether some gazillionaire's playground is adequate enough.

As I tried to make clear in my post, getting a brand-spanking new stadium does NOT guarantee improvement on things or more jobs or better economic growth, etc., etc. Not by a long shot.

interests and concerns. So if you are pigeonholing me somehow insinuating that I do not care about people.... well then...I know you do not know me. I have worked tirelessly for many diverse projects in the past. For no pay. For out of pocket expenses.

Nor do I doubt your humanity. I'm saying that it looks like there's really no money for both at this point, and that sports should go by the wayside in that case.

This isn't about "subsidizing millionaires." We as Minnesotans get a lot out of it too.

there's no money for health care, schools, or roads, but the Vikings expect their new playground to be bumped to the top of the list or they'll pack up and leave. Boo-hoo-hoo.

It's a myth that professional sports team bring a lot of revenue or jobs into an area - read Liberalhistorian's post on Cleveland's experience.

#1 Cleveland's economic woes are far greater than one sports stadium could affect.
#2 I believe, and have stated on this thread, that a facility with a retractable roof is necessary to provide venues for year-round activities.

At any rate, can you answer me one question?

Do you believe having a professional football team does *NOTHING for a city or region? That it has no, zero, zilch, nada positive economic and societal impact?

It's a way of pumping up phony civic pride and making a few people very rich.

It provides multi-million dollar jobs for the players and owners and low-paying jobs for everyone else involved.

Thanks for your cynical input.

the Vikings. for many it is nice to be able to watch them on tv and know that they are one's home team.

If there is no professional team(s) people will find other ways to spend their entertainment dollars and other ways to amuse themselves.

or whatever corporation they name it after can pay for it.

I just don't want my money going to it any more than I wanted to pay for a Twin's stadium.

me barging in here, I'd just like to say a couple of things. While I now live in eastern South Dakota (not far from the MN border-and I've always loved MN, especially Minneapolis and have many friends there), I grew up in, and spent 35 years in, NE Ohio, aka the Cleveland area (OK, OK, keep the well-deserved snickers to a minimum, please!).

We went through nearly the same thing you are now going through with this stadium issue a little over a decade ago. Now keep in mind that Cleveland is beyond fanatic about their football, the Browns, to the point of neurotic obsession. I never could understand that, but hey, that was just me. The roof of a Cleveland school could cave in and the front page the next day would be that they resigned star quarterback Bernie Kosar (true story). The schools were and are crumbling and dying, homelessness and foreclosures at record levels, inner-city hospitals that served the poor and uninsured closing, people freezing to death on the streets at night, unemployment soaring, crime rising, no money for public services or police/fire, etc., etc., etc., etc. But ALL the city cared and cares about is the Browns. PERIOD. NOTHING else ever mattered.

When the Browns announced they were moving to Baltimore in '95, the city immediately went nuts and went into action, with Mayor White putting together a 20 MILLION dollar package of several million dollars in immediate payments, plus tax breaks and incentives, and plenty of other goodies. Meanwhile, teachers and police and fire officers were being laid off left and right and city hospitals closing, with the city claiming they "just didn't have any more money." The city that had just voted down yet another school levy, as they'd done for the twenty years before (and stupidly wondered why the schools were in such horrible shape) immediately voted in a levy to pay for a new stadium, which is what the greedy gazillionaire Browns owner, Art Modell, had been demanding for a couple of years. Never mind that there was NOTHING wrong with the old one and that Modell and his cronies could more than afford to put together enough private financing to pay for it themselves. No, Mr. anti-tax free market holy roller himself demanded ALL public funding or he was going to take his toys and boys and go home.

Well, he did and the city spent the next few years in sackcloth and ashes over it until new owners for the team came to town to revive it. The city couldn't have cared less about all the other problems. They kept saying that a new stadium would improve conditions, create needed jobs and revenue, blahblahblah yaddayadda, the usual song and dance. So the city spent gazillions of dollars that they didn't have on a stadium that wasn't enclosed or domed and could only be used for football EIGHT fucking times a year. Period. And guess what? NONE of the claims of increased revenue, more jobs, better conditions, etc., etc., have come true. NONE. OF. THEM. Which was what many of us could have told them in the first place. And, in many ways, the city is worse off than it's ever been with no relief in sight. Yet the region is STILL obsessed with their fucking football. They don't seem to understand that, until they care more about the region and its people and problems and needs than they do about their damned football team, nothing will ever change.

People and politicians and regions will always find money for what is REALLY important to them, no matter what they may say about how dire conditions are. And what is important to too many people and politicians is sports stadiums and sports. So PLEASE don't let this happen to Minneapolis and your great state, please. It's all smoke and mirrors, nothing will change and you'll be on the hook for decades to come. Let the millionaire crybabies finance their playgrounds themselves and put their free market holy rolling to the test. They love to privatize the profit and socialize the risk. Don't let them do it to you.

I can understand people liking football. I like to watch certain athletic events, too. In fact, I love watching swimming, track and field, gymnastics, skiing, bobsled, and figure skating, and other sports typically highlighted at the summer and winter Olympics.

But I understand that they're not really IMPORTANT.

If someone suggested that the Twin Cities host the Olympics, I'd say "Are you kidding? Look at how few cities have broken even on the Olympics."

Football is not IMPORTANT. It is not worth obsessing about. The whims of one football player are not worth daily front page news coverage, and they would not have been front page news thirty years ago. Football players are not worth millions of dollars. Football programs at major universities distort the budget and educational missions of those schools. The Super Bowl is not an event of cosmic significance.

Football is hyped, pushed, promoted, and treated as a great, All-American essential pastime precisely because it's not important. It's purposely put forward as a distraction, as a way to bring eyes to advertisements, as a way for ordinary people to channel their anger and frustrations away from the real culprits. (Working temp in some really oppressive companies, I couldn't help noticing how much they enforced "fun" by trying to get the employees all worked up about the Twins or Vikings.) That's also the reason for the phenomenon that liberalhistorian noted: people of a city that is falling apart being fanatically devoted to football. If the people are obsessing about football, then they're not obsessing about the wretched state of their city or demanding action.

Taxpayer support for the arts is TINY compared to taxpayer support for stadiums, and the arts preserve and enhance our cultural heritage and make us THINK. They also provide an experience that is based on cooperation (musical ensembles, dance troupes, theater) rather than aggression and mutual satisfaction between the performers and the audience for a job well done as opposed to half the audience going home miserable.

The powers that be want to promote competition rather than cooperation. They want to have winners and losers.

I still stand by my opinion that I think some "creative" thinking is due on the Stadium issue. Somehow people think one has to choose one over the other so if so, I say dump the Twins since the American Baseball League hires a lot of people from outside the Country and pays far higher wages to their players. pffft*

First off, we've got problems here which affect everybody:

- Our roads are garbage, both in the metro and outstate. Congestion in the metro is so bad that *business* groups were supporting an increase in the gas tax two years ago because their drivers were stuck in traffic on deliveries and their trucks were getting beat to hell. Who pays for those delays and broken axles? You and I do, as consumers.

- Our public schools - once among the best in the nation - are now middle-of-the-pack in several areas .... both k-12 and higher ed ... and will continue to fall until something is done and restoring cut aid is a part of that solution. Don't have children? Fine. But who are you going to hire for your business? Education affects everybody in one way or another.

- We all know about the public health cuts in the state social net ... without those programs, people will have little choice but to let medical issues to escalate until they need an emergency room. Who pays for that ... you and I do.

- Just last week, a study showed that the child poverty rate in Minnesota has increased by 50 percent in just three years (10% in 2006 to over 15% in 2009).

Money that goes toward an NFL stadium is money that cannot go toward other areas.

Second, I used to work with Economic Developers and this topic came up a lot. Every study I read showed that discretionary income spend on entertainment is just that ... if not spent on football, it will be spent on movies; if not spent on theater, it will be spent on bowling. So when somebody starts hyping all the money the Vikings games (or the Twins games or the Guthrie) brings in to an economy, I know they don't know their stuff.

Finally, and perhaps most important, I believe that if there is no stadium built (at whomever's expense ... ours, Zigi's, the tooth faerie), that the Vikings will use that as an excuse to try and leave town. I doubt L.A. for a few reasons (I think the Rams or the Raiders are heading back there). BUT, I believe what would follow the loss of the Vikings would be even more expensive ... that is the money that would go into getting a team (perhaps even the Vikings) to move to the Twin Cities. It is cheaper to keep them than to lure them (or the Rams or the Raiders or whoever) here. And when it comes to sports teams, politicians just can't help themselves ... they just gotta give and give and give.

And although I do really like pro football, that saddens me.

differently.

Is there an Anti-Vikings Association that I didn't know about?

No, those letters sounded just like what I've heard people say. They're tired of profit-making businesses owned by billionaires asking for corporate welfare.

they will publish anything that does their investors in Oil, Real Estate & Medical investments good. They are far from an impartial newspaper anymore with most of their leading staff from DLJ Merchant Banking and the Bank Suisse. I consider the Strib totally corrupt.

It's not our team; it's his team. I've never received a dividend check; have you? He gets the profits while we get to pay for his infrastructure. Just another example of the socialization of risk/privatization of profit.

irks you but maybe all he meant was in the context of the conversation about "will he take the Vikes elsewhere", he called them "Minnesota's Team". That is how I took it. I actually think that he and BF have fairly good intentions in that they would like to make the fans happy. Sure, it would be great in real life if there was a way for them to stay without it totally taxing people. Then again, so much has been given as I say to the Arts and other Teams. Mn. has certain things that people think of when they think of this State. The forests, the Lakes, Prince, The Walker, The Guthrie, The Twins, The Vikes. Just part and parcel of our branding and what we offer.

they care about lining their own pockets at our expense.

Impact statement and summary:


http://www.msfc.com/tour.cfm