The Minnesota Vikings Want a New Stadium

The Minnesota Vikings want a new stadium.  Well, why shouldn’t they?  I want a new car.  But they want us to pay for their place of business.  They’re actually serious.  They want us to pay for it, or at least a large part of it. 

Why, you might ask do they need a new stadium?  Doesn’t the current stadium give them enough of a home-field advantage?  Yes it does.  In fact it is so noisy that it’s one of the biggest home-field advantages in the league.

Is it too small?  No, the new one they want to build is about the same size as the current one.

Is it old and decrepit?  Well, it’s about 40 years old.  That’s one of the older stadiums in the league but it’s still perfectly serviceable, looks OK, and does what it needs to do.

So it needs a dome to get the fans out of the Minnesota winters, right?  No it has a dome.  The dome does have a tendency to collapse every 30-40 years in really bad snow storms which is paid for by insurance.  But come on.  Every forty years?

But it’s hard to get there with no public transportation nearby and no parking, right?  Actually, the light rail was routed into the wrong side of downtown just so that it could go by the stadium, and there are lots of relatively modestly priced parking garages nearby.

So, what’s the problem?  Well, it seems there are two:  It doesn’t have nice enough dressing rooms and it doesn’t generate enough money.

Given how much the players make, should we really care if they have to change in less opulent dressing rooms or for that matter in their RVs or the restroom.  Suck it up, guys.  It’s 10 times a year.  Pretend you’re in your luxury car.

Second, you want us to pay millions of dollars for a new stadium so you can charge us more to go to a game?  Seriously?

At the risk of sounding like a politician, may I suggest that the Vikings don’t have a revenue problem?  They have a spending problem.  The owners have billions.  The players make millions.  So the problem is that the fans don’t pay enough?

But if we don’t build a new stadium, they will leave.  OK.  Isn’t that called extortion?  Don’t we realize that no matter what we do, the larger markets will always do something bigger, better, and more expensive?  It’s a game we can’t win.  At some point some city has to say, so be it.  We have children to educate and roads to build and people to protect.  You can’t seriously expect us to spend a billion dollars to give you a place to play eight regular, two preseason and occasionally a playoff game or two each year at a higher price than we pay now.  Besides, we still have our televisions, which is how the vast majority of us see the games anyway.  Are our lives really so pathetic that we can’t feel complete unless the team is called the Minnesota Vikings?

Well, at least the law says that a stadium can’t be built without a referendum so we don’t have to worry unless a majority is willing to spend the money.  You’d think so, but those who want the stadium are busily trying to find ways to circumvent the law.  You’d think that would get them kicked out of office faster than you can say “We lost another Super Bowl,” but it didn’t seem to cause any problems when the Twins pulled the same trick.

Those who will make a fortune from a new stadium have managed to change the discussion from whether to build a stadium to where to build it.  In one sense, that’s ingenious.  But in a larger sense, it is insidious.  Look at our state’s economy.  Look at our needs.  Look at our long-term goals.  And you think the best way to spend a billion dollars is on a new stadium?  Really?