Soccer Stadium in Minneapolis (cancelled)

[grant1simons2]

The businesses that have already moved from the site:

Fish Guys: http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... -park.html
FinnStyle: http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/m ... nding.html
Our World Shops: http://post.mnsun.com/2015/01/golden-va ... shops-inc/

I've had mixed feelings on this, but I can't but think how cool it is that every single one of our major sports teams will be connected by a light rail line. You can go from Farmers Market, to Target Field then to Target Center. Move further down past Nicollet mall to Downtown East for the Vikings, ride down further through the U and Stadium Village to the Gophers sports facilities. Take the rest of the line through St. Paul past the Capitol building to the X and finally end at the new Saints CHS Field..

[nfschauer]

And we'd be the only metro area with all professional sport teams each with their own venue!

[kiliff75]

Just trying to understand some logistics...so I want to see soccer played outdoors as much as everyone else (believe me I'm pulling for McGuire over Zygi), but what happens when there's too much snow to play in some future March (obviously not this year!)? Would they be able to play a game or two at Zygiville or is that just not going to happen because of sour grapes? The Vikings Stadium is a public facility but can the MLS legally play games in there if Zygi's not the owner of the team, as written in the stadium bill?

[nfschauer]

Most soccer specific stadiums have overhangs above the seating, as for the field I'd imagine they would have it heated. The Vikings play outdoors in December and the field is dry, so I'd imagine they'd work something out.

[acs]

They'd just clear the snow, heat the field, and let the fans tough it out. I've been for a privately funded soccer stadium before but I'd never realized just how early the season started (seriously, why does a summer sport start a whole month before baseball??) until last week. If it snows too bad they would need to cancel or re-schedule a substantial amount of games and that's significantly harder when teams can only really play once every 4 days max.

Also, my dream of another east metro based pro team is dead .

[HuskyGrad]

Just trying to understand some logistics...so I want to see soccer played outdoors as much as everyone else (believe me I'm pulling for McGuire over Zygi), but what happens when there's too much snow to play in some future March (obviously not this year!)? Would they be able to play a game or two at Zygiville or is that just not going to happen because of sour grapes? The Vikings Stadium is a public facility but can the MLS legally play games in there if Zygi's not the owner of the team, as written in the stadium bill?

I presume once Minnesota United FC is awarded a franchise that clause would become null and void due to the inability to acquire a franchise.

[go4guy]

I would also assume the Minnesota team would most likely start on the road. Kind of like they try to do with baseball. Maybe start with 1 home game, but then go on a long road trip.

[talindsay]

http://northernpitch.com/_/minnesota-so ... um-bid-r51

I really hope that article is true, not only for all the obvious reasons but also because it demonstrates that MLS is interested in following the (common in other countries) idea of letting highly-successful second-division teams move up a division instead of enforcing team-league boundaries the way MLB and NHL do.

The interesting question of course is how to pay for it. I'm sure McGuire isn't looking to spend $300m out of pocket on a stadium so he's going to need partners, and I don't imagine that MLS alone can make that happen. Government sources seem unlikely.

[Nathan]

It did day the pohlads and a couple of other families were in on the deal. 300m would hardly hurt if a few if those families split the cost.

I looked at the list of mls stadiums, it lists all the prices and such. It seems pretty reasonable to do for that price, though spending a little extra gets a really nice pitch. Kansas City has one by populous. So sexay.

[Rich]

Info has been added to this Strib article. Some of which may not have been known. Apparently McGuire’s first preference was to get the MSFA’s permission to use the Vikings stadium. He had to be reminded that the stadium law prohibited that. Also McGuire’s attorney is on record as saying that Farmers Market stadium funding “will take some involvement from a government unit.”

http://www.startribune.com/sports/29608 ... page=2&c=y

[mplsjaromir]

Getting the state to fund, or to sign off on Hennepin County allocating Target Field sales tax for The MLS seems unlikely. No state legislator is worried about the political fallout from not funding a stadium for The MLS.

McGuire has already grifted enough money from ordinary people in his life, he should spend his own.

[MNdible]

I'm on record as being very skeptical about the need/ability for this region to support yet another major stadium, but I don't necessarily think that getting the state to sign off on allowing the county to use a portion of the Target Field tax to pay for the stadium would be that hard of a pull.

Using some back of the envelope math, if the public kicked in $100,000,000 financed with 30 year bonds, the annual costs would be $5m to pay them back. By all accounts, the current tax is kicking off at least that much in excess of what's required to pay for Target Field and the other library and park elements. And based on the conservative assumptions that were used in structuring the tax, we're likely to have even more excess funds in the future.

Again, I'm not a superfan of the public being involved with this, but it does seem that the initial public costs could be financed almost painlessly.

[mplsjaromir]

Proponents of the new Vikings Stadium used the argument that taxes paid by players on their salary added a not insignificant amount of money to the state coffers. At around $131 million payroll in 2014 for the Vikings I find the argument dubious, but concede that a reasonable person can make the argument.

The NBA has a salary cap of around $63 million and is expected to increase to $88 million next year. Major League Baseball team's payrolls fluctuate between $60 million and $273 million.

The MLS payroll in 2014 was between $2.8 million and $15.6 Million, with 70% of the teams with a payroll of less than $5 million.

Hard to justify economic development for a league that touts its self for keeping player salaries low. If one used the same metric for the Vikings subsidy, based on a percentage of payroll, an MLS should expect to receive around $22 million from a government entity. Again this ignores the fact that the NFL has not had any team go under in the last 20 years, and has a fifty year track record in this market.

[Didier]

For the record, people who claim player salaries will pay for a stadium don't know what they're talking about.

[Didier]

To clarify, that's not an attack on you. Just that the people you are referencing were spouting bad information. There's lots of it in these discussions.

Ultimately stadiums are entertainment/quality of life subsidies, but politicians can't say that.

[Viktor Vaughn]

Ultimately stadium subsidies are team owner subsidies, but politicians can't say that.

[fehler]

I put this at about the same level as the St. Paul Saints as far as local support. How much did they get for their new stadium?

[nfschauer]

http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2015/03 ... sacramento

Looks like MN United is a lock, just gotta confirm the ownership group can get the funding needed for the stadium.

[Nathan]

YESSSSSSSSSSS

[talindsay]

I don't want the public to pay for it either. But I do want it to happen and I think the public can be involved in bringing together the funds, if not in funding it.

*ANY* justification of public financing for a facility for a purely private enterprise amounts to subsidizing rich people. Of our recent local stadium binge only the Gophers stadium is justifiable if you're worried about that.

Urban stadiums are desirable to the extent that they improve the urban experience and add to the breadth of uses and level of activity. On that basis, baseball is without question the most urban-friendly sport, with basketball and hockey coming in pretty quickly thereafter - all three bring large (but not crush) loads of people into the city at a lot of times throughout the week, for a significant portion of the year, on a schedule that accommodates secondary uses and other activities. Football, of course, is terrible by this metric - very few uses, all in a single season, with crush loads of people on those few uses and a culture that specifically turns its back on the other activities of the city.

On this basis, soccer is somewhere in between - games are both more frequent and over a greater span of time than football, but less frequent and on a shorter span of the year than baseball, basketball, or hockey. Crowd size is less than baseball but likely to grow to be more than basketball or hockey for any individual game (making some assumptions there, I know), and the games should be conducive to other activities before, if not after, the games.

Stadium costs - they're estimating the stadium itself at $200m - are much lower than professional football or baseball, a little lower than a major arena, and a bit more than minor league baseball.

A soccer pitch at this location seems a nice addition, one that won't deactivate a critical part of the fabric while probably increasing urban activities and off-hours uses. That probably means it's worthwhile for the city or county to help them arrange and/or structure their financing. Actually funding it, of course, should be left to the rich people who own the teams, just as all our private-sports facilities should be funded privately.