Would you be in favor of a "fan tax" in order to support the building of a new Viking’s stadium? If it were somehow possible to quantify who was and wasn’t a fan (who watches games and who doesn’t), would you as a fan be willing to spend, say, $10/year to assure the Vikings dont move to California?

(This is completely hypothetical. It has never been proposed by any of the parties involved. It is merely just a way to gage how serious we as fans really are about building the stadium. Please be honest with your answers, as if answering yes actually meant an agreement on your part.)

(In case you’re curious how I arrived at the tax dollar amount. Its a rough estimate:

- 5,200,000 residents in Minnesota
- 60% of the TVs on Sundays are tuned into Vikings games
- 60% of 5,200,000 = 3,120,000 + 60,000 (in the dome) = 3,180,000

- 3,180,000 x $10/year x 20 years = $636,000,000
- enough to get the Wilf’s to build the stadium without a cent being charged to those who don’t want it)

(Appologies, as this is also posted in another related blog, but I just really want a lot of feedback on this proposal.)

I posted on this topic earlier but you have to be realistic about the finances. The stadium plus the annual operating loss of the stadium total approximately $50,000,000 per year for the next 30 years. I don’t live in Minnesota but I would be willing to pay. Sell me a seat license which allows me control over my seat ($12,500) and an annual assesment of $350. This pays the entire $750.000.000 plus the operating deficit.

Oh the Vikes won’t do that because they want the revenue from selling seat license. Just like every other NFL team. The league says they pay $20,000,000 per year to keep the Vikings in Minnesota in the current stadium. I don’t believe it and even if its true that’s less than 1 million per team. Does the league care? Does Ziggy care about Minnesota. We will soon know.

As for the Jaguars having games blacked out, the Bill having the oldest stadium, or the fiasco that is the Raiders, there is only one statistic the league cares about—revenue.

And the Vikings are dead last in revenue.

We were blackmailed into paying for a deadbeat team like the Twins, that can’t be bothered to even sign their own stars like Hunter or Santana, to have a new stadium. And now we don’t have the money for the Vikings who actually put a quality product on the field.

It just sucks.

Smokers are addicted, so no matter how much they bitch, there going to buy the tabacco; and liquor, especially liqour taxes, aren’t cheap either, but it doesn’t seem to be a deterrent.

Other options would be to legalize various vices and tax the begibbas out of them…prostitution? …illicit drugs?

Put a casino in the new stadium? Open up a river boat gambling operation?

I still say that the “Mall of America Field” sponsorship is the first step in building a business relationship that will ultimately end with a new football stadium being built adjacent to the Mall of America.

They have been trying to expand the MoA for years, with plans in the running since around 2000. But since the economy has stalled, they haven’t been able to follow through.

So there is this huge empty area next to the MoA that is about the right size for a stadium to be built.

There is already parking, the light rail is already there and it is next to the airport and the freeway. It is one of the most logical places to put it, and will increase traffic to the MoA along with giving them a venue to host large concerts and whatnot if MoA wants to do so.

Imagine the money they would get from the “indoor tailgaters”.

because the stadium in that picture doesn’t look like the $1billion dollar stadium that we’re supposed to build!

If a team has to move, it should be the Jags. They can’t fill the seats, and they have no real NFL History anyway. Plus I think the Jags will be firing Jack DelRio after this season too.

Next would be the Raiders. Al Davis has the whole team up for sale anyway, plus it’s just easier for them to move. Not to mention, they’re from LA anyway, so they’ll fit right in..lol.

The photo of the Photo of the concept stadium in Minnesota is great plus really good information on the issues that confront the project.

http://football.ballparks.com/NFL/MinnesotaVikings/newindex.htm

i’ll help build the stadium for free. ironworkers local 512 is on my speed dial. that would be my contribution. anything it takes to keep the vikes in minnesota!

two existing NFL franchises, one playing in it every week of the NFL regular season.

Q. Why are the Vikings a choice target? A. They are the most talented and competitively successful team which is potentially available due to financial problems in their current location. That is a large part of what is takes to successfully prime the fan base in the new location. (Only an idiot like Limbaugh would want to buy the Rams.)

Q. How will developer Ed Roski get money to buy part ownership in these existing teams? A: He’ll sell off his casino interests, which is something he must do anyway to participate in NFL ownership under existing NFL policy. Ed has taken a big hit in his portfolio, as many investors have in this recession, but Forbes still ranked him as the 236th richest person in the United States in 2009. (His petty cash would look to most like a retirement fund.)

Q. Aren’t their some legal issues holding up the start of the California stadium? A. Not any more.

Q. Why does the planned Minnesota Dome 2.0 have a roof, but the stadium for City of Industry California not have one? NFL football guarantees only a minimum of eight days use of a stadium per season per team. To support the cost of the building, something else needs to be found to make profitable use of the building in some of the 357 other days of the year. In City of Industry, California, it rarely rains in summer and does not snow in winter. The annual average temperature there is 77 degrees. In Minnesota, those things are definitely not true! Imagine booking a U-2 concert or a Final Four series and finding it has to be postponed or cancelled due to weather. Big problem? Yes. You can only make so much on soggy monster truck shows.

Q. Why does Elgar feel the Vikings are headed west? A. People I talk to say the same stuff people I talked to in Cleveland in the mid-90’s said before the Browns shipped out to become the World Champion Baltimore Ravens. The situations are quite similar. The major league baseball team is moving to its own new stadium. The people say the economy is bad and the football team will just have to wait. The successes of the second nearest NFL franchise weakens the fan base in the home locale. The people say they pay too much in taxes (and hope Ben Franklin was also wrong about death being inevitable). The fans think they own the home team because it is currently playing in their city (even though you continually point out to them that the Rams or the Lakers are playing in other cities now). Art Modell was an advertizing tycoon in Cleveland before he bought the Browns. His name was on plaques as a major donor to health clinics and public projects. People told me he back then he was bluffing about moving. “He’s got too much invested in Cleveland to leave.” Obviously, those people with whom I spoke were proved totally wrong, but they were just as sure of themselves as the many people in Minnesota I talk to nowadays. Not enough of them will wake up until it is well past too late. Then, all the shock and awe and lawsuits and moaning epithets will be just as effective at keeping the franchise in Minnesota as the ones in Cleveland were back then. People think tomorrow will be just like yesterday. That makes it a self-fulfilling curse that it won’t be. Everyone is too busy texting to see that oncoming eighteen wheeler. Yes, you living in Minnesota will be helping out a billionaire: the billionaire will just be 2000 miles away, and his state will be the one to benefit from all the taxes, transportation fares, restaurant traffic, and hotel room money generated from NFL games.

would you go away please.

Since the Rams and Raiders left L.A., there has been a new stadium proposal every other year, and yet nothing happens. You think things look bad economically in MN or even here in New Mexico? See what is going on in Cali. There is no way the people there are going to go for it. They are to passive with a “so what” attitude about the NFL. I really dont see it. It will come down to the final minute, perhaps as a barganing chip, but I seriously see the Vikes staying here with a new stadium.