I'll be the first to admit, the building looks gorgeous, but for a billion plus, it should. The internal views of the downtown are stellar, and the interior looks even better than Olympic stadiums. I actually think the stadium will be far more well received than the new stadiums in Rio. From the exterior, it does look like a wart on the city, and from Washington Avenue, it look strikingly like a Jawa's Sand Crawler from Star Wars, but like we tell our kids, it's what's on the inside that counts.
Now let's accept reality: the primary tenant of this facility, the Vikings, will be playing a total of 10 games a year in it. The stadium will likely be considered old and outdated in 25 years, at the time when the next owner starts flying to Portland, or Salt Lake City, or Saint Louis, taking tours of undeveloped regions, just to scare Minnesotans into building the next stadium. 25 years times 10 games is 250. That means we just payed, as taxpayers, 4 million dollars per game, and that's very likely on the low end. Is there anything else we would pay 4 million dollars to put on, even one time, in the Twin Cities? When we get blown out by Arizona at home 42-3 in 17 years, we just paid 4 mil. for that honor.
No, stadiums don't pay for themselves. If they did, the billionaire owners would build them themselves, and leave local governments completely out of the loop. The players mostly live in tax free states, not in Minnesota, and the Viking's owners are currently from New Jersey. Over the long run, we're going to take a massive loss on this facility.
I think a community should help their sports teams build stadiums. I do. There's a value in having major sports leagues in town. The Twin's stadium, Target Field, is a great example of how to build a stadium affordably. That team plays 81 home games a season in a building which cost taxpayers around 300 million. Factoring in the same 25 years of games (25 years times 81 games per year, then divide 300 million by that number) and you get about $148 thousand per game, a bargain comparatively, and if you make the very reasonable argument that 20,000 fans at any given game spend only $7 each outside of the stadium, you've actually encouraged spending in the community that's more than the cost per game. To get that rate of return, the Vikings would have to have every seat filled for every game (66,000), and every person who goes to the game would need to spend $66 each game, to offset the 4 million. For a family of five, that's $330 each game outside of the stadium. That won't happen. The entire concept of stadiums today is to make every purchase an internal one, dramatically limiting non team related meal, parking and souvenir sales around the facility. The Vikings don't want any competition on any level, even suing to get a Wells Fargo sign they felt was too damaging to "their" view removed.
And this is only one sporting venue in town. Imagine what our art community would look like if we spent 50 million on improving all of our museums. We'd be an art mecca in the Midwest, easily drawing thousands of extra people to the city each week during the summer. How about our theater community, or hiking/biking trails? What if the state rolled into a small town and invested only ten million there to promote local tourism? Think about what kind of improvements we could make in the everyday lives of Minnesotans with just a fraction of the costs of the Vike's stadium, improvements which would encourage even more spending within the community.
A note to anyone who was for this stadium being built, who then tries to complain about "wasting tax payer dollars" on ANY future issue: Shut up! You're argument is invalid due to your previous stances.
The other events the stadium will hold will be a plus. Gopher Baseball not having to spend March and April on the road is a bonus, and every major concert tour now has Minneapolis as a must stop. And more sporting events like the Chelsea/AC Milan soccer match will show up, but a large portion of the profits from those events will not go to the state of Minnesota.
And the cost to go to these games will be far from affordable. Sure, the league will reserve two rows in the upper deck corners as 'charity' for some poor kids in the metro, just so the team can run up there with their cameras, to show the world the kid's faces, and talk about how great the team is because they gave back to the needy. Meanwhile the community's wealthy brag as they sit in a $10,000 seat the tax payers paid for. Maybe if you're lucky, the company you work for has a few seats. Maybe you'll win the office lottery and get to see a preseason matchup with the San Diego Chargers or the Buffalo Bills. Mind you, the premium games will be saved for the executives.
That's the beautiful ugliness. Sure the facility looks nice, but most of the state will never be able to afford to go to a game, and the same politicians who scream about cutting food assistance, mental health care funding, and mass transportation will giddily overlook the spending spree they allowed, just so they can get a photo with a player or executive, showing off their "purple pride!" Coincidently, purple is also the same color you get when you strangle someone.
All we really did is take a billion dollars in tax payer money, insist it shouldn't be used for roads, schools, health care for the elderly, keeping our environment clean or any other worthy, needy issue, gave it to one billionaire, so he could make even more money, by producing a product which only the wealthiest of people will be able to enjoy on a consistent basis. Forgive me if I don't clap.
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