Vikings Stadium Miscellaneous Discussion

[mullen]

he's the county appointment to the planning commission. was on the council back in the 60s. i would think the county could come with a better candidate than this guy. perhaps someone with some design credentials. guess that's asking for too much. the planning commission is not the place to make your political statements on the stadium and publicize your mayoral run.

[MumfordMoses]

Great! Hopefully a false alarm.

http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... 07711.html

[min-chi-cbus]

Don't you think that any potential lawsuit or even kicking Wilf out as owner wouldn't do more than maybe DELAY the stadium....no more than a year or two? Wilf championed this thing and he's a huge (HUGE) benefactor but that doesn't/shouldn't change when/if that benefactor resigns. Perhaps it does, IDK. The city voted for it, it's (sort of) funded, the design is finalized (much to my chagrin), and the GC has been chosen and timetables are set.

How much is Wilf himself paying? I know the Vikes and the City/State are paying the lion's share of this thing. But honestly, who WOULDN'T jump in Wilf's place if they'd inherit a $1B stadium for a song (thanks to a gigantic state subsidy/free-be)?!

[mullen]

yea this is typical minnesota passive agressive, lets get a committee and study. the NFL vetted these people and their finances. you really think the NFL would allow a family of lesser means into their little ownership club? the nfl isn't going to kick them out as owners. this lawsuit is 21 years old. we are so pure and do everything above board here don't we. oh the judge called them evil...we can't do business with "evil" people. so comical. and mark dayton's reaction was totally true to form.

why are you so shocked? its more like a 60-40 split..not the "lions share". it's common knowledge these stadium deals are giveaways. the owners will make the money back in seat licenses, naming rights with nfl supplying the rest in the form or a "loan".

it's the cost of having professional top tier sports. unfortunately we don't live in a city with a really mega rich person who wants to personally bankroll his grand sports ambition...seattle and atlanta come to mind. the wilf's fortunes don't come close to some of these other owners. those stadiums have minimal public outlay..at least by comparison. this is sad pathetic minnesota. maybe we shouldn't have this stuff and just be content with hunting and fishing.

[Didier]

People on this thread sometimes talk about the situation as if the Vikings have no skin in the game. How they're paying for it is basically irrelevant: what it comes down to is that the team is responsible for $477 million of the $975 million to build the stadium. That gives the Vikings some input into what's going on with its design and construction.

(This is more in reference to the generally discussion than the New Jersey lawsuit)

[John]

Minnesota wholesomeness meets east coast corruption! Can't really blame the MSFA given the political sensitivity of subsidizing the stadium. But I think it's probable the stadium deal is squeeky clean and will proceed as planned.

[min-chi-cbus]

why are you so shocked? its more like a 60-40 split..not the "lions share". .

I think you're splitting hairs if you don't consider 60% "the lion's share".

[Didier]

It's actually more like a 48-52 share.

[Rich]

The Vikings will cover $13 million of the $20.5 million annual operating expenses. The rest is paid by Minneapolis. If the stadium lives 40 years, the breakdown of building + operating projects to this:

Vikings - $997 million (56%)
City - $450 million (25%)
State - $348 million (19%)

[RailBaronYarr]

^Unless you include the bonding cost of the state/city's contribution, which has an opportunity cost in future years.

And even if you don't do that, are you convinced that the city and state will see $798m or more money returned to them in taxes vs a "no-build, Vikings leave" scenario? How much of the gap between investment and return is it worth to have an NFL team in town? I don't think anyone can answer that question, unfortunately, which is why NFL teams (and to lesser extents, other pro franchises) can threaten so easily.

[David Greene]

And even if you don't do that, are you convinced that the city and state will see $798m or more money returned to them in taxes vs a "no-build, Vikings leave" scenario? How much of the gap between investment and return is it worth to have an NFL team in town? I don't think anyone can answer that question, unfortunately, which is why NFL teams (and to lesser extents, other pro franchises) can threaten so easily.

Right.

Does anyone have a sense of the marginal increase in tax revenue from Target Field? My guess is that data isn't tracked anywhere. I could sort of make a case for Target Field given that it's used 81 times a year and is smack in the middle of the entertainment district. The Vikings stadium, not so much.

Dayton was on MPR this morning stating how we'll see return on the Vikings stadium when DTE is redeveloped. We've already seen the Ryan proposal tied to the stadium. I'm asking an honest question here. How do we actually measure how much economic activity is generated by this stadium? Or any investment for that matter?

[RailBaronYarr]

^Don't get me wrong, I see a need for a facility that serves the state-wide community as well - ex. HS football tournaments, other public events. But the reality that many of the events that are held in stadiums like this are run by other private enterprises. The Vikings should have partnered with a bunch of event organizers (concerts, monster trucks, home/garden expos, roller derbies, etc) to fund the vast remainder of the stadium, with the public putting in maybe 10% (or 0% and pay full-market rates for public uses). Isn't that how pretty much any other private development is done?

WRT to this court order, come on. Nothing will change.

[nordeast homer]

^^^
Don't forget we are likely to get a soccer team out of the deal that will occupy this thing in the spring and summer. MLS has already given their blessing on the stadium.

[RailBaronYarr]

^^So why didn't the Wilfs push harder to partner with some local soccer clubs to come to the table with the MLS for an expansion team pending the construction of this stadium. With the owner of the soccer team pledging to kick in $100M for playing rights and a cut of the suite sales.

We shouldn't let the public (aka city/state gov't) fall prey to the "oh my lawdy, we should BE so lucky to get an MLS team and keep our NFL team. What saints they are!" mindset. Reality is that we're the 16th largest metro, we're still growing (and at a faster rate than many midwestern metro peers), and a team located here brings in TV viewers across the state, much of northern IA, western WI, and eastern ND/SD. Yes, they'd likely tune in to other games without the Vikings being located here, but there would be a lot who would no longer do so religiously without a team they identify with. The NFL and the Vikings need Minneapols/St Paul as much as we need them.

[David Greene]

^Reality is that we're the 16th largest metro, we're still growing (and at a faster rate than many midwestern metro peers), and a team located here brings in TV viewers across the state, much of northern IA, western WI, and eastern ND/SD. Yes, they'd likely tune in to other games without the Vikings being located here, but there would be a lot who would no longer do so religiously without a team they identify with. The NFL and the Vikings need Minneapols/St Paul as much as we need them.

Bingo. Relocation was an empty threat, just as Pohlad offering up the Twins for contraction. The latter was leverage for negotiations with the MLBPA.

And if the Vikings had done the financially insane thing of relocating? -- God, if only that could have come true!

[Didier]

A nonexistent MLS owner didn't latch on to the funding because there is no MLS team. And if there is, in the next five years the Wilfs have exclusive rights to own the team.

[RailBaronYarr]

I never said there was an MLS owner, I stated that the owner of the major MN soccer club would have been brought in to the discussion to get a team approved by the MLS contingent on the stadium going through. The owner is worth $1.2B, recently donated a collection of butterflies worth $40m (http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz ... _RI3M.html). I don't think it's outrageous to expect the Wilfs to perhaps partner with other private business owners to build an arena that 90% serves private interests to get it funded rather than ask for massive public funds. Instead, they got a half-free stadium AND rights to an MLS team. Capitalism!

[Didier]

You're basically just throwing out conjecture about things that are way more complicated and unrealistic than you think.

Minnesota United barely existed when the stadium negotiations were taking place, and calling it a "major" team is an amazing exaggeration. Plus, MLS was not seeking expansion teams at the time and Minneapolis is hardly a lock for when expansion does take place. There simply was no logical reason for why our tiny minor league soccer team would have invested up front in the Vikings stadium.

[RailBaronYarr]

We can argue in the weeds, the point is there are many, many events being held in the new stadium for which the people who profit off them could have been partners with the Wilfs/Vikings. The fact that stadiums as high-end as the ones currently being erected cannot be fully paid for, even after the NFL "loan," without public subsidy is proof that the value in the price tag is not worthwhile to Vikings fans or other sport/concert/show goers. (That, or the NFL owners outside of Atlanta are really good at convincing the public to pay a larger share than is necessary for the stadium to be financially viable).

[min-chi-cbus]

How do we actually measure how much economic activity is generated by this stadium? Or any investment for that matter?

You COULD just ask the question to each and every developer who builds something in the general vacinity: "did you locate here because of the presence of the Vikings Stadium?". And if the answer is "yes", then you could follow up by saying "what % impact does the Vikings Stadium have on that decision", and they could say that without the Vikings Stadium here, there'd only be a 50% chance we'd do this project. So then you could take 50% of the tax returns from that project and allocate it as "Vikings ROI".

Does that make sense? I do things like this all of the time in my day-to-day job, and as long as you make your assumptions crystal clear and they're widely accepted you can take anything that is overtly subjective and turn it into a quasi-science (i.e. objective).