The Minnesota Vikings’ drive for a new stadium may resemble the franchise’s offense this past season, lacking momentum and struggling to find the end zone. The team’s stadium lease at the Metrodome expires after the 2011 season and ownership can then move the team if it chooses. The bet here is the Vikings will receive financial assistance for a stadium before 2011 but not this year. The franchise management and ownership have stated for years their revenues are among the lowest in the NFL and they need a new facility to generate additional income.
Of primary importance is how to fund a new stadium that with a retractable roof could approach a cost of $1 billion. It’s anticipated the Vikings will help significantly in the funding but other financing will be needed. As usual with stadium funding, the financing idea will be controversial. For example, sales tax revenues from the seven county metro area dedicated to the stadium will receive plenty of opposition including from Anoka County, the intended site for a stadium until the Vikings decided they preferred downtown Minneapolis.
Not only will it require time to work through a financing plan, but the state legislature, other leaders and the public will need to be sold on the downtown site, retractable roof, and building a third new stadium in a market place already committed to about $800 million in stadium costs for the Twins ballpark and Gopher football stadium.
A new Viking stadium on the Metrodome site makes sense. Owner Zygi Wilf can potentially work with the city on land development as part of a stadium deal, enhancing the east side of downtown. A retractable roof stadium will effectively replace the Metrodome, continuing to provide this area with a large venue serving a variety of uses benefiting the community, from NCAA basketball tournaments to concerts, from high school football and soccer playoffs to tractor pulls, from small college and high school baseball to long distance running. Such events (the Metrodome is used more for other events than it is for the Twins, Gophers and Vikings) not only serve the community, but they cause economic activity in the city with expenditures for food, lodging, shopping and more. As the hub city in the region, Minneapolis is the best site for the stadium and like other inner cities across America needs economic activity and renewal.
While some may swallow hard at the thought of three stadiums for perhaps a total cost of $1.7 billion, each stadium fits a purpose. The Gophers wanted a college size stadium on campus and many in the University neighborhood didn’t like the idea of the huge crowds a combined Vikings-Gophers facility would bring to the University’s East Bank. The Twins? While they must play a few more years in a covered football style facility in the Metrodome, no major league baseball team plays in that kind of stadium anymore. The Twins’ need for a new stadium has always been the most pressing.
The Twins and Gophers stadium success was slow to develop in the legislature. The Vikings have been pitching for a long time, too, but legislators don’t give their support to stadium bills easily and it may take awhile longer, perhaps 2008 or 2009, to see the stadium drive reach the end zone.