On Sunday the Vikings play the first football game in their new, state-of-the-art, $1.1 billion stadium, a preseason game against the Chargers. It is not a coincidence the National Football League scheduled the Bolts to be Minny’s first home opponent.
U.S. Bank Stadium is new and shiny and massive and an example of what the NFL wants to see built in San Diego. If you listen to the folks involved in getting it built, this is one of the greatest days ever.
“The Minnesota Vikings have a new home and they are here to stay!” proclaimed Michele Kelm-Helgen, chair of the Minnesota Sports Facility Authority, at the stadium’s ribbon cutting ceremony. These folks say it’s not just the Vikings that will call the admittedly impressive new facility home.
The 2018 Super Bowl will be in Minneapolis. The 2019 NCAA Final 4 will be there, too. The 2017 and 2018 X-Games have signed on to let Minnesota host their spectacle. And that’s not all.
“More than 300 youth sporting events will compete on this very ground,” says Kelm-Helgen. “Weddings, craft shows, major conventions and roller blading will happen here.”
All this will happen in a new stadium that sits on the site where the Metrodome used to be. U.S Bank Stadium is so large that its predecessor would actually fit inside it. It has a one-of-a-kind clear roof that gives games played indoors the feel of being outside. The structure of the seats puts many of the 66,000 fans right on top of the field in an attempt to create a home-field advantage similar to what the Seahawks enjoy at CenturyLink Field.
This new monster was financed through a combination of public and private financing, split almost down the middle. The public portion comes from sales, gambling and tobacco tax increases.
During the 31-month build the area surrounding it also saw a near $1 billion renovation with new offices, residences and a public park going in. Those are the things the stadium proponents point to when justifying the more than $600 million expenditure by the public.
“This economic renaissance of East Town (the area where the stadium sits) will be a lasting legacy to those of us who worked on this project,” says Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton.
But unlike the pending stadium/convention center initiative in San Diego, the bill to get the facility in Minneapolis built was structured so that it was never put to a vote, and that raises serious red flags.
“I actually think Minneapolis got one of the worst deals as far as I’ve seen and it’s too bad that we did that,” says City Councilmember Cam Gordon. “It’s just going to set the precedent for the NFL teams to think they can get that from other cities.”
Like, say, San Diego for example. Gordon wonders why private entities can pony up $1 billion for offices and parks but the NFL, a $13 billion a year company, asks for so much help from the public to build its facilities. There is only one existing NFL stadium that was built entirely with private funding: MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Jets and New York Giants. Many people in Minneapolis feel money from a major tax increase should be used on schools, roads and first responders … a sentiment echoed by a large number of San Diegans.
“I think the things you’d look at and say, well this is something for the public, a library or a school or a park that everybody is going to get to use and it’s going to benefit everybody, they’re not going to have to pay to use it, that’s where we should make these investments,” says Gordon.
That brings us to the realm of “economic impact,” which is open to interpretation.
“Now that the stadium is competed it will continue to benefit our community in so many ways,” says Kelm-Helgen. One study anticipates the Super Bowl and Final 4 alone will bring $600 million to the region. How long that kind of interest and engagement lasts, however, could be a big concern.
“There’s going to come a time 25, 30 years when they’re going to say this is obsolete, we need a new stadium,” says Gordon, “and they’ll probably come back to the public and say can you please build it for us so we can keep making these exorbitant profits.”
Another parallel to San Diego is the scare tactic. The Vikings threatened to leave Minnesota if they did not get public funding for a new stadium and it’s no surprise what leverage they used.
“Los Angeles was what they used for us, too,” says Gordon.
The circumstances in Minneapolis and San Diego are similar. Both have football teams that threatened to leave, wanting public money through a tax increase, raising the same types of economic concerns. The biggest difference is the amount of money being asked for.
The Chargers want more than twice what the Vikings received, mostly because of the addition of the convention center. The one thing just about everyone we have talked to agrees on, whether in favor of or opposed to a new stadium, is the real benefit of keeping an NFL team in a new facility is civic pride. Now if someone can find a way to quantify and perhaps even monetize that, a lot of questions will be answered in America’s Finest City.
