Sports: Pro & Con

[Nick]

http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... 62681.html

Vikings ceremonially break ground on new stadium

Article by: RICHARD MERYHEW and PAUL WALSH December 3, 2013 - 2:49 PM

The 2½-year mission to build a $1 billion new home for the Minnesota Vikings ceremonially kicked off Tuesday morning with a long-awaited groundbreaking outside the Metrodome.

And so it has begun.

The 2½-year mission to build a $1 billion new home for the Minnesota Vikings ceremonially kicked off Tuesday morning with a long-awaited groundbreaking outside the Metrodome.

Two longtime project boosters — Gov. Mark Dayton and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak — were among the speakers at the under-the-tent event outside the doomed Dome.

Team owners Zygi and Mark Wilf also attended, along with executives for HKS Inc., the stadium architect, and Mortenson Construction, the stadium builder, and star running back Adrian Peterson.

“What a day,” Zygi Wilf said to the gathering. “It was always our intention to bring a championship and a stadium” to Minnesota, he said. “We are embarking on our way to both.”

[...]

[David Greene]

Is there a reason for that other than "dude, sports?"

Campus atmosphere. A college gameday experience is nothing like the NFL experience and trying to do it in an NFL stadium doesn't work. The NFL is far too sterile. Intimacy is important.

Is there something wrong with people enjoying sports? Because please, you can dispense with the holier-than-thou attitude.

[FISHMANPET]

I'm not on board with subsidizing other people's hobby's without a clear public benefit, if that's "holier-than-thou" then so be it.

[David Greene]

I'm not on board with subsidizing other people's hobby's without a clear public benefit, if that's "holier-than-thou" then so be it.

The U is a public institution. The U gets a lot from the football program. It makes money and brings attention. I'd call that a public benefit. The Vikings stadium is a completely different beast from that perspective.

[FISHMANPET]

It seems pretty silly to me to have a publicly financed stadium downtown that's empty on Saturday, busy on Sunday, and another one 2 miles away that's busy on Saturday and empty on Sunday. Yes the atmosphere on campus is "different" from that downtown, but I don't know that it's necessarily "better" in an objective sense. If the TCF Bank stadium was paid for through ticket sales and the Vikings stadium was paid for by the NFL, then I wouldn't really care. But I'm still paying loans that include, in part, an extra fee to pay for the stadium and I'm paying sales and income tax to pay for the Vikings Stadium, and I have to wonder why I'm paying for two stadiums whose use is almost completely mutually exclusive.

Whether the Gophers should play at a the new Vikings Stadium, or the Gopher Stadium should have been built to meet the needs of the Vikings, I don't really care which.

[grant1simons2]

You know that nearly all D1 colleges have their own fields right? At least in the big ten all of the teams play in their own stadiums http://www.collegegridirons.com/bigten.htm

[Nathan]

It seems pretty silly to me to have a publicly financed stadium downtown that's empty on Saturday, busy on Sunday, and another one 2 miles away that's busy on Saturday and empty on Sunday. Yes the atmosphere on campus is "different" from that downtown, but I don't know that it's necessarily "better" in an objective sense. If the TCF Bank stadium was paid for through ticket sales and the Vikings stadium was paid for by the NFL, then I wouldn't really care. But I'm still paying loans that include, in part, an extra fee to pay for the stadium and I'm paying sales and income tax to pay for the Vikings Stadium, and I have to wonder why I'm paying for two stadiums whose use is almost completely mutually exclusive.

Whether the Gophers should play at a the new Vikings Stadium, or the Gopher Stadium should have been built to meet the needs of the Vikings, I don't really care which.

It's not like you didn't realize taxes and tuition were going to be paying for things you didn't utilize... I highly doubt you use every road or even bike trail in the state, or that you used every facility on campus... you opted to go to a large school where you knew that would be the case... I'm just feeling not sorry lol

[grant1simons2]

Mad a weird little map of what could happen.

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit? ... DDTGOMKD0s

[FISHMANPET]

It's not like you didn't realize taxes and tuition were going to be paying for things you didn't utilize... I highly doubt you use every road or even bike trail in the state, or that you used every facility on campus... you opted to go to a large school where you knew that would be the case... I'm just feeling not sorry lol

It's not just paying for things I don't use. There's tons of stuff I don't use that I'm glad to pay for. Schools, food stamps, Mnsure, etc etc. The difference is there's a greater economic or moral good that those programs serve. A stadium doesn't serve those same ends. I've got plenty of expensive hobbies that I don't expect the government to pay for, I don't see why sports fans expect the government to support their hobby.

[Nathan]

I mean I understand... I would have rather used half the money and developed the Northern part of the Mississippi with parks and all that jazz, but you know what lots of people would see that as excess even though I think it's doing good for a lot of people... (and the environment) The fact is that there are tens of thousands of people in this state that value football so much that they spend hundreds of dollars on tickets, or companies give them away to employees, and it brings joy to some people and civic pride to some people, the same way a shiny new Nicollet mile would though its not really needing 50m? It's not easy to access how valuable that stadium will be to the average Minnesotan, for a lot of them not getting a light rail in their region it's probably the only billion dollar investment that they'll use on a regular basis... or take their friends visiting town to see. (I have packers fan friends who live in Arizona that have never been to MN and they are coming to the first MN v GB game in the new stadium... literally that's what it took to get them to come visit me and I left AZ 6 years ago.)

[Silophant]

You know that nearly all D1 colleges have their own fields right? At least in the big ten all of the teams play in their own stadiums http://www.collegegridirons.com/bigten.htm

I'm sure he does. That being said, how many Big Ten, or even FBS, schools have a NFL stadium within a couple miles of their campus?

[David Greene]

how many Big Ten, or even FBS, schools have a NFL stadium within a couple miles of their campus?

Northwestern (they sometimes play at Soldier Field for big games)

[Nathan]

You know that nearly all D1 colleges have their own fields right? At least in the big ten all of the teams play in their own stadiums http://www.collegegridirons.com/bigten.htm

I'm sure he does. That being said, how many Big Ten, or even FBS, schools have a NFL stadium within a couple miles of their campus?

vicinity shouldn't be cause for our largest school to not have the same kind of facilities as other comparable schools, plus this is also the marching bands practice facility and a few other things... The university shouldn't be limited because of the fact that it's also near mpls. if the UofMTC was suddenly in Duluth it would be worth it because of vicinity? Oh now the students should get campus pride, and be able to walk to games, and really get into college football in their own setting, but only since it's far enough away.

In any case, I think an open air soccer pitch would be awesome, especially if we have two divisions playing there, I think the experience is important for the culture to grow in our town.

[FISHMANPET]

We're an urban campus, which (I believe) is fairly unique for the Big Ten or even in general, it would be nice to take advantage of that sometimes. And yes, TCF Stadium is on campus, but it's also on one extreme end of campus. I still live in my campus apartment and Downtown East is a closer walk for me than TCF Bank.

It's not like the NFL sharing a stadium with a college is unprecedented outside our metro area: http://www.footballgeography.com/stadiu ... -football/
There's gotta be a way to build a stadium that serves the needs of both teams, and do it spending less then $700 million in public money (the non-private contributions to both the Vikings and Gopher stadium).

[David Greene]

I still live in my campus apartment and Downtown East is a closer walk for me than TCF Bank.

What's a "campus apartment?" Unless you're in a dorm, you aren't on campus, as far as I know.

Sure, parts of the West Bank are closer to downtown east. So what?

[grant1simons2]

Uhhh. There's apartments on "the campus"

[FISHMANPET]

I still live in the same building that I did when I was in college.

The point I'm making is that it doesn't really mean anything to say "students can walk to it" when that's just as true for the Downtown site as it is for the current TCF Bank Stadium site.

We're an urban campus, which is a fairly unique situation, I don't see why we can't take advantage of that somehow, rather than try to be like every other school in the interest of meeting the status quo.

[mullen]

i lived off 35w and fourth st i guess that qualifies as a campus apt eh.

lots of cities around the world have urban campuses. i can think of chicago and atlanta off the top of my head. seattle has u of washington. there's ucla and usc in los angeles. we're not unique.

why are we debating the merits of TCF bank stadium anyway. it opened five years ago. lots of well meaning people rasied a lot of money to help build it. the metrodome was not on campus and unversity deserved better. the ship has sailed. but this is the way of the stadium obsessed people. if mn united/twins have the means and desire to build a soccer specific facility wonderful. i was at the man city game at TCF saturday and it was a fun atmosphere.

[jet777]

It's not like you didn't realize taxes and tuition were going to be paying for things you didn't utilize... I highly doubt you use every road or even bike trail in the state, or that you used every facility on campus... you opted to go to a large school where you knew that would be the case... I'm just feeling not sorry lol

It's not just paying for things I don't use. There's tons of stuff I don't use that I'm glad to pay for. Schools, food stamps, Mnsure, etc etc. The difference is there's a greater economic or moral good that those programs serve. A stadium doesn't serve those same ends. I've got plenty of expensive hobbies that I don't expect the government to pay for, I don't see why sports fans expect the government to support their hobby.

This is a very easy argument to make when you have no interest in the "hobby". i have very little interest in this one too, but let me see if I can put it in a smaller scale context for you to help you understand why government sometimes steps in to pay for peoples' "hobbies". I worked at a company that provided an adoption benefit. It's difficult to see how that cost benefits most people in the company, unlike a perk like tuition reimbursement where the end results have direct impact on their success. The company had several similar programs and had fantastic employees, and their financial analysis suggested their ability to hire and keep great talent was due to the overall benefit package. In the case of "hobby stadiums", a similar approach should be taken. The analysis is probably even easier since there are several very tangible revenue streams for the city (taxes, employment, new related construction etc.). I completely agree that the numbers need to make sense (not sure the public portion of the glass metrodome would calculate, but it may calculate better than what we've spent on MNSure). I never get tired of the "government wastes money" argument, but I'm very tired of the "government should never pay for things with no direct economic benefit that I don't use" one.

And are you sure you want the government defining what fits "the moral good"? Haha.

[go4guy]

The only two current scenarios that would be similar to sharing a stadium are Pittsburgh and Miami. And the Miami situation is one of the worst in college football. I dont follow Pitt very much, but the games I do see, it just looks really weird seeing them play in that over-sized stadium. As a fan, I would never want to go.

But this argument could be made in many different examples. Why dont the Wolves play at Williams? Why dont the Wild play at Mariucci? Why dont the Saints play at Target Field? Why dont they hold all Guthrie events at Northrup? Why do they need to have so many theatres that hold similar amounts of people?

The Vikings and Gophers have two completely different needs. And lets not pretent that TCF only gets used 7 days a year. There are constantly weddings, fundraisers, corporate events, practices for football, marching band, intramural sports, classes, the list goes on and on and on. TCF is used a ton. And a lot of that has to do with its location.