EDIT: I need to brush up on my calendar-reading skills. The White Earth Tribe press conference about stadium financing is today at 9 AM Central time. Because today is Thursday. By process of elimination, that means that yesterday was not Thursday. But tomorrow is, indeed, Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday.
I really need a nap. Seriously. But, that aside, if we find anything linking to the press conference, we'll effort to put it up here. - Chris
This morning, as I was looking for Vikings news to bring all of you fine people out there, I came across a little tidbit that said that the White Earth Tribe had scheduled a press conference at the State Capitol today with the nebulous heading of "Stadium Financing" being the reason they were calling it. Since the presser apparently started at about 9 AM Central time and I didn't see it until about 9:15 or so, I had no prior knowledge about it and attempted to bludgeon the Twitterverse into seeing if there was any information they could pass along.
Alas, at the time there was not. . .but now it appears that we have a new financing plan from the White Earth Tribe. It appears that they're pretty serious about getting involved here.
On the website pushing the stadium funding idea, MinnesotaWins.com, the tribe outlines their proposal for the casino. They estimate that it would generate $300 million a year that would be divided 50/50 between the tribe and the state, with the tribe also paying property taxes and sales taxes. There would be no new taxes that would have to be introduced on the people of Minnesota to make this happen and. . .this is the big one, in my opinion. . .they've already got financing secured for construction of the casino.
According to the Minnesota Wins website, once the stadium is paid for, all of the money generated by the casino would continue to go to the state. And because the casino would be a partnership with the state of Minnesota, it could be regulated and audited by the state as well.
The only thing that the plan doesn't really specify is where the casino would be built, from what I can see. Would it be built downtown somewhere, possibly in Block E as has long been rumored. . .or would it get built at the Arden Hills site that the Vikings have preferred for their stadium for so long? That remains to be seen.
But, as "GoTwins!" pointed out in the FanShot that was attached to this story (which is where I initially saw it. . .thanks, GoTwins!), if a plan for financing a new Minnesota Vikings stadium sounds like a good one and it makes too much sense, there's only one logical way to look at it.
But I'd really, really like to hope that's not the case.