This article from Grantland, the site that ESPN's Bill Simmons founded some time back, was linked over in the FanShots a couple of days ago, but it really needs to be brought to everyone's attention.
It was written by Steve Marsh, a Twin Cities-based writer. Full disclosure. . .prior to this, I had never heard of Steve Marsh, so I'm not sure if he's freelance or who he works for or anything like that. But the piece is quite well-written, and gets into a lot of the different aspects of the process that those of us that weren't sitting right there in St. Paul might not have been aware of.
My personal favorite quote is this little passage here, which came from Marsh talking to Larry Spooner, the man that basically became synonymous with the pro-stadium movement.
. . .In fact, most people have an emotional attachment to sports, usually very positive or very negative. But most people aren't in the position to vote on billion-dollar deals.
It all reminded me of something Spoons said about pronouns in the rotunda the first time I met him.
"You ever hear the Vikings referred to as - one word - WE? What time do we play? Did we win? GOTCHA. That's all I gotta say. If you ever in your life referred to them as we" - here he paused to point out that he knows it turns into they when they lose - "but if you ever refer to them as we, GOTCHA. Because we don't refer to the barbershop as we."
But, again, read the whole article. . .it's lengthy, but it's worth it.