Vikings stadium is a reality....updated.

[rivan]

Again, the 'we'll make the $ up with tax revenue' argument is just a lie concocted to fool idiots.

It worked on STL when they bent over to get RAMmed. And how long since, they're threatening to leave?

 

[BoberFett]

they had a perfect spot in arden hills,could of had loads of tailgating space and away from that traffic disaster downtown at the dome....

Yeah, that's just what I want. A brand new single use stadium in my backyard that I pay for and never use. Fuck pro sports.

 

[BoberFett]

Isn't that why hennepin county tax went up? haha ...

That's partially why I moved out of Hennepin, screw those greedy bastards.

And then to hear that they were talking about building a Vikings stadium in Anoka Co and raising my taxes again, I just about blew a gasket.

 

[BoberFett]

n/m, continued reading and he agreed...

 

[BoomerD]

I looked it up, and the stadium would be publicly owned. Sounds great, right? Wrong. When stadiums are publicly owned, they actually often run a deficit. So, it is more likely that the stadium would NEVER make all the money back.

Again, the 'we'll make the $ up with tax revenue' argument is just a lie concocted to fool idiots.

Agreed. From this morning's paper:

http://www.modbee.com/2012/04/17/2162186/cities-dont-win-in-stadium-deals.html

GREENHUNT: Cities don't win in stadium deals

Officials in Sacramento are furious that the owners of the Kings basketball franchise, the Maloof family, said they are backing out of a handshake deal in February to invest $73 million in a project to build a new arena downtown.

This publicly funded stadium issue has raged in cities across the United States, including Indianapolis, where the highly subsidized Lucas Oil Stadium hosted this year's Super Bowl, and Minneapolis, as Minnesota legislators ponder a deal to build a new football stadium for the Vikings.

But the story in California's capital, a city of 2 million with a perennial inferiority complex borne of being overshadowed by Los Angeles and the Bay Area, is not about the details of the deal or the wiles of mercurial owners of NBA teams. It's about the foolishness of city officials who pin urban renewal hopes and taxpayer dollars on sports complexes despite the public's declining willingness to pony up the cash.

Stories over the weekend quoted fans who feel betrayed by the Maloofs, but these feelings are hard to quantify. Some residents are no doubt upset, but others question whether this is the best use of public resources, especially now. Though the economy isn't as bad in Sacramento as in some other California locales, it's still depressed.

At the news conference last week in New York announcing their decision to abandon the plan, the Maloofs deferred to economist Christopher Thornberg, who argued that the city-backed deal was based on a "wildly overblown estimate of the kind of revenue value this arena will bring to the city." He said the project "would really put the city right on the edge of potential fiscal disaster."

The Maloofs' lawyer said revenue projections were based on boom years when the now-lowly Kings were in the championship hunt.

Economists have long understood that new arenas and sports stadiums rarely bring new economic activity into a city, but merely move entertainment money around the region.

"Economic growth takes place when a community's resources — people, capital investments and natural resources like land — become more productive," wrote the economists Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist in a still-quoted 1997 Brookings Institution study. "Building a stadium is good for the local economy only if a stadium is the most productive way to make capital investments and use its workers."

That almost never is the case. These deals are not about economic growth, but civic pride. Last year, after the Maloofs announced their plan to move to Anaheim, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson talked about the need to keep the franchise to help Sacramento become a "world-class city."

But as I wrote in a column in The Sacramento Bee at the time, "Second-tier cities believe that professional sports put them on the map, although all they do is provide some unexceptional entertainment and enrich team owners, who cleverly manipulate the local inferiority complex to gain arena subsidies."

Sacramento officials spent their time and squandered taxpayer money on such dreams, while neglecting the nitty-gritty of municipal government — and it shows throughout city neighborhoods.

The response to the column was positive, from people who understood that Sacramento is a perfectly nice place to live, but that keeping a team in town will never help it become a destination city.

Residents, apparently, are savvier than their leaders.

"If the Maloofs had wanted to embarrass Sacramento on a national stage, they brilliantly succeeded with the televised Manhattan press conference they orchestrated Friday," The Bee editorialized Saturday.

Yet Sacramento civic boosters will continue to be played as fools until they realize that the Kings are no more important to the local psyche than any other business franchise. Sacramento, a government town where state workers flee the city center at 4:30 p.m. every day, has myriad obstacles to creating a vibrant downtown. Blocks from the planned arena, the main shopping plaza is practically a ghost town.

Despite decades of subsidies, the main downtown drag, the K Street corridor, is known for vacant storefronts. An arena won't fix these problems.

Officials in California's first-tier coastal metropolises need to learn these lessons, too. Los Angeles leaders are pushing a downtown stadium despite the obvious traffic issues, while a competing group is offering a plan on the eastern edge of the San Gabriel Valley.

In San Diego, officials continue to promote an atrocious taxpayer-funded stadium deal to keep the Chargers from heading to Los Angeles, but they don't seem to be getting much traction.

Perhaps city officials everywhere will always be lured by the promises of big-league franchises. In that case, public skepticism is the best way to keep taxpayer dollars safe.

Steven Greenhut is vice president of journalism at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

BLOOMBERG NEWS

Fuck those team owners. If they want a mega-million dollar arena...they should build it themselves and reap the financial benefits themselves...

 

[Triumph]

Its all about luxury boxes to sell to corporations and rich people. Plus, if he gets the stadium on the peoples dime his franchises worth would double.

Understood on the second part, but the first part is a lame excuse. Really? It's easier to destroy and rebuild an entire stadium, than it is to convert or add seating for luxury boxes? That's like saying I'd rather destroy my house and build a new one because the kitchen isn't big enough.

 

[sactoking]

Understood on the second part, but the first part is a lame excuse. Really? It's easier to destroy and rebuild an entire stadium, than it is to convert or add seating for luxury boxes? That's like saying I'd rather destroy my house and build a new one because the kitchen isn't big enough.

Except the engineering required to build an area is at least an order of magnitude more complex than the construction of a single-family home. In many cases destruction is a more viable option because the cost of maintaining structural integrity and working within existing structural constraints during an arena remodel exceeds the cost of the actual remodel.

 

[rockyct]

Agreed. From this morning's paper:

http://www.modbee.com/2012/04/17/2162186/cities-dont-win-in-stadium-deals.html

GREENHUNT: Cities don't win in stadium deals



Fuck those team owners. If they want a mega-million dollar arena...they should build it themselves and reap the financial benefits themselves...

The Padres ballpark in San Diego has been pretty successful in turning around a section of downtown. The area was pretty nasty fifteen years ago and now combined with the convention city and the neighboring Gaslamp District, have really made it a signature part of the city. I think the ballpark did everything it was going to do...except help field a real baseball team. The team is still as shitty now as it was before but now they play in a beautiful ballpark. I think that's where the city still feels taken advantage of.

The Chargers want a new stadium and I think the bus yard near the Padres/convention city might work out. However, the city got screwed during the guaranteed sellout years that cost something like $40 million for the city. That deal really poisoned the well for a new stadium. The money is a drop in the bucket compared to a new stadium, but so much disgust formed for Spanos during those years with a shitty football team (best record was 8-8 during that time, worst: 1-15) that it's going to be hard to overcome it.

 

[Hugh Jass]

I guess I should have put a disclaimer in...I obviously have no idea what or where they will go or if they will at all,I was kinda venting as our sports teams seem to get yanked out from underneath us...first the lakers then the stars and now this fiasco...:|

Sorry for your confusion.

Wasn't actually confused at all...but thanks anyway.

 

[Rage187]

<---lifetime Viking van and Minnesota native



Fuck em. They haven't done shit, except choke when it counts in the last, I don't know, FOREVER.

 

[shortylickens]

<---lifetime Viking van and Minnesota native



Fuck em. They haven't done shit, except choke when it counts in the last, I don't know, FOREVER.

Ditto.
And ditto.

 

[OCGuy]

Great, that is all Socal needs. LA Kings. Sacramento Kings (still possibly coming here to Anaheim) and the ViKINGS.

fustercluck

 

[Childs]

Understood on the second part, but the first part is a lame excuse. Really? It's easier to destroy and rebuild an entire stadium, than it is to convert or add seating for luxury boxes? That's like saying I'd rather destroy my house and build a new one because the kitchen isn't big enough.

That seems to be the motivation for all of the new stadium builds these days.

 

[Triumph]

Except the engineering required to build an area is at least an order of magnitude more complex than the construction of a single-family home. In many cases destruction is a more viable option because the cost of maintaining structural integrity and working within existing structural constraints during an arena remodel exceeds the cost of the actual remodel.

Really? A billion dollars to renovate a stadium, that's how much it would cost? Absolute hogwash. Whoever is doing the analyses is fudging the numbers because they know the team owner wants a new stadium. It's bullshit. In 2005, they retrofitted Virginia Tech's stadium (I mention it because I know about it in particular):

After the 2004 season, the old press box was removed and construction began on this west-side expansion, filling in to match what was built up during the 2004 season. The new boxes include a new press area, on the side toward the south end zone, with a dining area and improved facilities. Also, the fencing that surrounds the stadium was removed, and the area on the west side exterior of the stadium landscaped with walkways and a weekday parking lot for ticket patrons and Hall of Fame and Hokie Club visitors. New luxury suites, President's area, four private club seating areas, concession stands, ticket office, athletic fund offices, an Athletics Hall of Fame and student academic services area were also included in this latest project. A two tier grandstand featuring 11,000 seats, 15 luxury suites, and a new visitor&#8217;s locker room was completed. The $52.5 million expansion includes 23 luxury suites, a new pressbox, and club seating. The addition increased Lane Stadium's seating capacity to 66,233.

The cost of all of this? $52 million. Yes I know a college stadium is not on the same scale monetarily as an NFL stadium. But are you telling me it would cost nine hundred and fourty eight million dollars more to do something similar to an NFL stadium? 20 times more? Really?

And how about a more direct comparison? The cost proposed to update the St. Louis Rams dome is $124 million. More than twice a college renovation, but that makes sense given the scale. Something similar couldn't be done for Minnesota?

Hell, one proposal for Minnesota involved adding a retractable dome, rotating the entire field 90 degrees, adding parking, transportation, etc. and the cost was something like $850 million.

 

[Childs]

Really? A billion dollars to renovate a stadium, that's how much it would cost? Absolute hogwash. Whoever is doing the analyses is fudging the numbers because they know the team owner wants a new stadium. It's bullshit. In 2005, they retrofitted Virginia Tech's stadium (I mention it because I know about it in particular):

Cowboy Stadium has multiple levels of club seating, 300 suites with high end amenities, including food service with stuff like $60 pizzas. Lots of shopping and other amenities that they really couldn't add to the old stadium. St Louis proposed converting 1800 seats to 1500 club seats and 4 suites, plus some cosmetic changes. More than likely it won't be good enough for the Rams. If you had a another stadium to play in while you did a complete overhaul you could probably save money while maintaining the same footprint, but the revenue drivers are the suites and shopping.

Met Life Stadium (Giants and Jets) costs $1.6B, without a roof, which includes 10,005 club seats and approximately 218 luxury suites. Not to mention the many premium clubs. 49ers new stadium will cost $1B or more, and include 150 luxury suites, 7,500 premium club seats. They already sold $173 million in suites and expects to reach the $200 million mark by the end of the year, and the stadium isn't even close to being completed.

Luxury suites rule in professional sports revenue

"Luxury suites have been growing in importance since the 1990s and are an essential part of any new stadium being built," says Emily Sparvero, assistant professor at the Sports Industry Research Center at Temple University.

"In fact, most new stadiums are built not because they are physically obsolete, but they are financially obsolete," adds Sparvero.

In the past 20 years, 75% of American sports teams have either built or remodeled their venues, with luxury suite additions being a major reason for the construction and renovation.

All stadiums going forward are going to want these amenities, especially if they can get it for free. Its not a matter of need, its greed.

 

[roguerower]

Hopefully that isn't true as my company pretty much had it in the bag to build the new stadium. Hell, we've built pretty much every other stadium in Minneapolis.

 

[child of wonder]

You mean I won't get to watch the Vikings suck most years then suddenly have a good year here and there only to choke in the playoffs??!?!?!?! Whatever will I do!!!!

I'm with most of my other fellow Minnesotans here: fuck the Vikings.

Can Target demand that the government build a new store for them? Can Best Buy demand a new corporate office or they'll move elsewhere?

No.

The Minnesota Vikings are a private business and should build their own stadium with their own money. I am not subsidizing their business with my tax dollars. If I wanted to support them, I'd go to the games.

 

[Rage187]

It'd be one thing if they had ever delivered a super bowl, I mean, that's how Indy got its stadium. The Vikings don't get shit because they haven't delivered shit except broken dreams, missed kicks and dropped passes.

 

[Scout80]

Personally, I don't mind a small hike in taxes for me to be able to watch their games for free on over-the-air cable every Sunday. Besides, I don't believe they are planning on building a single-use facility. Other sports/organizations would be able to use the facilities because I believe it would be owned/run by a council similar to the Metrodome.

EDIT: I live in Hennepin County btw.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

As a lifelong Vikes fan from the Bud Grant/Purple People Eaters years, I would be very sad to see them leave. Alan Page, Carl Eller and, Fran Tarkenton were frequent visitors as a HS senior. They weren't millionaires who stopped by for a photo op, they were real live heroes you could watch play on the week end and didn't seem to mind spending time with us 'youts.'

 

[BoomerD]

You mean I won't get to watch the Vikings suck most years then suddenly have a good year here and there only to choke in the playoffs??!?!?!?! Whatever will I do!!!!

I'm with most of my other fellow Minnesotans here: fuck the Vikings.

Can Target demand that the government build a new store for them? Can Best Buy demand a new corporate office or they'll move elsewhere?

No.

The Minnesota Vikings are a private business and should build their own stadium with their own money. I am not subsidizing their business with my tax dollars. If I wanted to support them, I'd go to the games.

I'm not defending the practice, but that's basically what happens. Corporations demand tax breaks and incentives from local governments for building a store in their area. Wal-Mart, Target, and many, many more all do it. Same with the huge distribution/fulfillment centers such as Amazon.

"Give us impossibly huge tax breaks and waive development fees, or we'll find some place else to build."

 

[JimKiler]

Yep, not to mention the dipshit owners/NFL have a completely craptastic licensing deal through DirecTV where they are raping fans to watch their product, much more than NHL/MLB/NBA. If the product was that good, I (and pretty much everyone I know that likes football) would have DirecTV. We don't.

I'm not defending the practice, but that's basically what happens. Corporations demand tax breaks and incentives from local governments for building a store in their area. Wal-Mart, Target, and many, many more all do it. Same with the huge distribution/fulfillment centers such as Amazon.

"Give us impossibly huge tax breaks and waive development fees, or we'll find some place else to build."

In the 1990's either ABC or CBS got tax break with the mere threat of moving their corporate headquarters.

I guess we should request a federal bill to stop this kind of if you don't give me a break another town will. But that would never pass into law.

 

[BoberFett]

From Boomer's article:

Economists have long understood that new arenas and sports stadiums rarely bring new economic activity into a city, but merely move entertainment money around the region.

I guess I figured that was common sense. A stadium's only chance to bring money to a region is if it has a winning team that hosts a championship.

Otherwise the best it can do is siphon money from the surrounding area. That's great for business directly around the stadium, and bad for businesses outside of it's area. The people that really win are the team owners.

 

[Away]

Goodell warns governor of 'serious consequences' for Vikings:
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000...-over-stadium-bill?module=HP11_headline_stack

 

[JimKiler]

Goodell warns governor of 'serious consequences' for Vikings:
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000...-over-stadium-bill?module=HP11_headline_stack

you forgot to quote the article:

"It's disappointing to think the NFL or the Vikings are driving policy for Minnesota government," Chamberlain wrote in an email. "They need to be willing to come back to the table and negotiate. The Vikings and NFL are in a much better financial position than our state."