New retractable roof stadium in Arden Hills

[james_walleye]

It's not personal Jake, limit and I always take friendly jabs at each other Reguarding the vikings.

[james_walleye]

I know you didn't, it just seems right up your alley to do so......that's where I was going with it.

[jwmiller33]

there is always someone who plays devils advocate... on this website, that someone is LMIT

[jwmiller33]

Hey LMIT, after which superbowl did you jump on the Packer bandwagon?

[rundrave]

I'll take 12,000 lakes over a superbowl trophy any day of the week and twice on sundays. MN has more shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined. It's the little things in life....

and yet our boat ramps and public walk in areas are full of blue plates. (nothing against out of staters I appreciate all of them and what they do for our small towns)

but maybe the line limit, not being able to fish year round, state income tax to go with your 10,000 fees...err taxes makes Mn better

[jwmiller33]

ignorance is bliss

[FutbolGuru]

This deal needs to get done. It'd create much needed jobs, improve transportation for the north metro (which will be needed in the near future regardless), transform a rundown polluted area near the twin cities into an asset, and keep the state's most profitable professional sports franchise in town.

Bottom line - I pay taxes for a lot of things I don't use - it's the way the world works - so stop whinning about it. If taxpayer funds are needed to keep the Vikings here, so be it. MN wins if this deal passes.

[DR_FISH]

The only team I care about moving is the wolves, and I want them to move.

[jwmiller33]

it must be so much fun sitting back and counting all your tax free money while fishing 2 lines in March while listening to the Sioux Falls Stampede game on the radio

[rundrave]

actually in March I would still be ice fishing so its 4 lines and Walleyes would still be fair game, and I dont like hockey

With the vikes, twolves, and twins history you would be a fool to use pro sports as your jusification to live in Mn. I root for them all, but if the fishing is so great, wouldnt you be listening to them on radio to?

Listen, I am not saying one is better than the other, but I have lived in both, I am not sure you can say that. I spent a few years in the cities, I know what its all about, I have taken part in the yearly traditions like the May fishing opener etc and the die hard ice fisherman. Its a big part of what Mn outdoors is about, my point is dont knock the Dakotas if you havent vested any time in knowing what they offer for outdoors, it might just surprise you.

I chose to move back here for several reason, and most dont pertain to the original posters thread.

[zamboni]

EVERY pro athlete, no matter where they live have to pay income tax to the state, if they play in a game here. That is a fact, and it brings in millions upon millions into the state every year.

I worked at Avis at the Kansas City airport, and at the MSP airport. I was working the last time the Final 4 was here, if you don't think hosting sporting events brings money into the state I have some land to sell you.

[zepman]

This deal needs to get done. It'd create much needed jobs, improve transportation for the north metro (which will be needed in the near future regardless), transform a rundown polluted area near the twin cities into an asset, and keep the state's most profitable professional sports franchise in town.

Bottom line - I pay taxes for a lot of things I don't use - it's the way the world works - so stop whinning about it. If taxpayer funds are needed to keep the Vikings here, so be it. MN wins if this deal passes.

+1

[Steve Foss]

Face it, this is the only way stadiums get built. Or would you prefer we be the one state with no pro sports teams whatsoever?

Uh. Wait, what?

[LMITOUT]

Forget it Steve. I've determined that when the Viking horn blows the rubes run to the kool-aid dish faster than Pavlov's dog.

[PurpleFloyd]

I believe both New England and Pittsburgh both built their stadiums without their states paying for any of the costs except maybe PILOT contributions.

The real point on this whole stadium debate that never gets answered is how you can have 3 teams(Vikings,Twinkies,Football Gophers{and even the twolves for the first few years}) playing in a 50 million dollar stadium that has has the mortgage retired for years and none of the teams can supposedly make money, but now we are looking at financing a 1.2 Billion dollar Vikings only stadium, a 300 Million dollar Twins stadium, a 250 million dollar Gophers stadium and the Twolves want their facility renovated too and somehow with approx. 1.8 billion in new facilities they will be able to pay off those loans and make appreciably more money too while they seat the same number of people.

So far there has never been a report issued that demonstrates how the economics of the stadium work out to get to break even but one thing is for sure- the prices are going to have to be appreciably higher.

[LMITOUT]

I still wanna know what's wrong with the Vikings playing in the Metrodome?

[jwmiller33]

absolutely nothing. especially considering they just put a new $18.3 million roof on it (even tho insurance covered most of it). Especially if the Vikes are only going to get one more year out of it, that is not justifiable in my mind.

[goblueM]

well, apart from the fact that its a crummy stadium, there's nothing wrong with them playing there. The dome is serviceable, barring more record snows anyways .... its a great location, just a terrible venue.

[chasineyes]

I still wanna know what's wrong with the Vikings playing in the Metrodome?

Same as..

Old Coke vs. New Coke

Ipad 1 vs. Ipad 2

Rotary phone vs. touch tone

old car with 100,000 miles vs. new shiney car with 0miles

old fishing rod (that works) vs. (well I just need a new rod)

1300 square foot house circa 1956 vs. 2100 square foot house circa 2011

wooden water skis vs. fiberglass/plastic water skis

Its all about something shiny, new, and well, fancier ( you know, the american way). Granted the team you put IN the stadium is what sells tickets!!!

[chasineyes]

If it's so crummy then why did the team sell out every year for like 10 years????

[creepworm]

How about instead of building a stadium to create a few temporary high end construction jobs, take that $300 million and save some of the state jobs that are being cut.

I just can not even understand where people think this stadium will create jobs. It will create a few jobs for a short period of time. As far a people to run the stadium, it will probably be more efficient and easier to run so I would assume this new stadium will actually have less employees than the dome, thus cutting the number of jobs overall.

[PurpleFloyd]

It all comes down to the amount of money that the team has to share with the rest of the league. One little loophole in the agreement is that teams do not have to share revenue from the luxury suites and I also believe the PSL's are not shared revenue so teams are jumping on the bandwagon to make sure they get as much revenue as possible from those sources and the dome is configured so that their ability to get large sums of that type of money is minimal. Their solution is to spend a billion dollars on a new building so that they can design those high profit options into it. And I don't have a problem with them wanting to make as much revenue as possible but IMHO they should be responsible for funding it themselves.

There will be construction jobs created from the project but you could create the same number of jobs on a public project so that debate is moot. There will be no new net jobs except maybe a guy to grease the rails of the retractable roof.

The interesting point in all of this is that back in 1997 or 1998 Red proposed a new 350 Million dollar stadium that he wanted the state to pay a large chunk of instead of building it himself. Now, 13 years later the Vikings are still without a new stadium and even with them contributing only 45 or so percent they are now looking at spending 400 million plus and they won't own it outright plus they are losing 13 years of potential revenue they could have had if they would have just done it then.

[PierBridge]

Give the owners the tax's that the players pay on income earned and there personal purchases and have them build there own stadium/s?

[jwmiller33]

Give the owners the tax's that the players pay on income earned and there personal purchases and have them build there own stadium/s?

so you want the government to just surrender tax revenue and hand it over to the owners so the stadiums being built would be 100% publically funded????

[MJBaldwin]

If the players/coach/owners want this so bad why dont they just pay for It I dont think its right that we have to pay for stadiums when we have a ton of roads that could use fixing yet we are building stadiums... Doesnt seem right no wonder why Minnesota is so far it debt just like the rest of the country.

[james_walleye]

Because that isn't reality that's why.

[DR_FISH]

The Zigs, or any of their billinair friends can't find a way to pull in that money to build it them selves?

[zamboni]

If it's so crummy then why did the team sell out every year for like 10 years????

Wrong. General Mills, Target, Best Buy and many other local big corporations have bought out thousands of tickets over the years so we didn't have games blacked out.

[B. Amish]

what was the nfl revenue last year? 8 billion? and why can't they build their own stadiums?

[LMITOUT]

Wrong. General Mills, Target, Best Buy and many other local big corporations have bought out thousands of tickets over the years so we didn't have games blacked out.

Which are a very small percentage of the total number of tickets sold.

Overall it is nearly sold out every game. Not bad for a so-called "crummy" stadium.