What if the N.Y. Jets were bought by Zygi Wilf instead of Woody Johnson?
MONDAY, 17 JANUARY 2011 23:03
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/what-if-the-ny-jets-were-bought-by-zygi-wilf-instead-of-woody-johnson
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
A little more than a decade ago, two New Jersey businessmen decided that they wanted to own a National Football League team. The estate of Leon Hess was selling the New York Jets and both Robert Wood Johnson IV and Zygi Wilf wanted the team. In 2000, Johnson beat out Wilf's group and bought the franchise from the Hess estate. There is no way of knowing what would have happened to the franchise had Wilf outbid Johnson for the team.
Wilf did end up with a National Football League franchise in 2006 when he led a group that bought the Minnesota Vikings.
Both Johnson and Wilf are still playing for a championship in the winter of 2011 although the titles they seek are totally different. Johnson's Jets will be in Pittsburgh on Sunday in the American Football Conference title game. Wilf is in a totally different arena but the stakes are probably much higher.
Wilf and his lobbyists are blanketing the state houses in St. Paul, Minnesota in a bid to get money to build a new stadium somewhere in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area,
Johnson's Jets play in a new stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey complete with all the bells and whistles that make a venue a state-of-the-art facility. He has personal seat licenses, large concourses to sell food and Jets merchandise, and access to large in-stadium revenue streams. But Johnson's facility did not happen overnight.
Johnson wanted a stadium on the west side of Manhattan at a rail yards site between 30th and 34th Streets and 11th and 12th Avenues next to the Hudson River. He might have also been able to get land for a new stadium in the Jets old home borough of Queens. The west side stadium would have also served as the centerpiece of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in New York and New Jersey. The stadium plan died when New York Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and New York Assembly Speaker Shelton Silver refused to support the plan in 2005. The International Olympic Committee soon afterwards eliminated the New York bid and gave London, England the 2012 Games.
Eventually Johnson along with the New York Giants ownership, the National Football League and New Jersey officials signed an agreement to build a new stadium next to Giants Stadium. The NFL loaned Johnson, and the Giants Mara and Tisch families hundreds of millions of dollars and New Jersey kicked in hundreds of millions of dollars for infrastructure along with tax breaks such as reduced property tax payments to provide stadium funding.
Johnson and the Mara/Tisch family put up some of the money for the structure that is estimated to have cost $1.5 billion.
Wilf is looking for hundreds of millions of dollars from Minnesota to help finance the stadium. He will not get NFL help, at least not right now, as the NFL's stadium finance fund is tapped out. The NFL is also not actively seeking to help owners looking for funding for a stadium until there is a new collective bargaining agreement. The NFL wants the players to put up money for a new stadium in Santa Clara, California that would be home to the San Francisco 49ers.
In somewhat of a muddled message, the NFL's senior Vice President of Public Relations, Greg Aiello, wrote on ESPN's website that the lack of a new collective bargaining agreement with the players is hurting Los Angeles chances of getting league financial support for a new stadium. Aiello said there are other cities also looking for money but did not name them. The other cities are Santa Clara and Minneapolis.
Minneapolis has been one of the epicenters of the sports financial earthquake that started in 1950 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee elected officials decided that the only way they could attract a Major League Baseball team to town was by building a stadium with public money and then giving virtually all of the revenue generated in the building to an owner.
The strategy worked as Lou Perini moved his Boston Braves to Milwaukee in March 1953.
Minneapolis elected officials pursued the same course of action. They allocated $8.5 million to build a stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington that opened for the minor league Minneapolis Millers in 1956. The Millers team was the New York Giants top farm club and the stadium caught Giants owner Horace Stoneham's eye when he decided that playing in Manhattan's Polo Grounds was no longer a viable financial option for him.
Stoneham kicked the tires in Minneapolis but took what was a better offer in his mind from San Francisco in the summer of 1957. In 1958, Minneapolis elected officials took out a $9 million bond to expand the 21,000-seat Bloomington seat to 41,000 seats.
The nine million dollar gamble paid off as the Bloomington stadium was big enough for Calvin Griffith who moved his Washington Senators baseball team to the Twin-Cities market after the 1960 season and the National Football League. The Minnesota Twins franchise started play in April 1961. The NFL persuaded the owners of the Minnesota American Football League franchise to drop out of the new league and join the NFL in 1961.
The NFL's Chicago Cardinals had played two "home" games in Bloomington in 1959. The Minnesota AFL franchise was replaced by Oakland, California. The Oakland team played in San Francisco in 1960 and 1961.
In 1965, public money was set aside for the construction of an indoor arena in Bloomington. The gamble again paid off for politicians when the National Hockey League in 1966 decided to double in size from six to 12 teams and added a team in Bloomington.
On the other side of the Mississippi, public money built the St. Paul Civic Center that became a competitor to the Bloomington building. Minnesota was totally immersed in sports spending by the early 1970s.
There is more than a half-century of public support for sports facilities in Minnesota and Wilf is hoping to be the latest owner to grab public dollars for a private business — the Minnesota Vikings.
Ironically, it was the 1966 American Football League-National Football League merger that doomed the Bloomington park. One of the NFL's proposals before Congress as they lobbied Washington to approve the merger was ran in the face of antitrust laws was to move teams. The league planned to have 24 teams in 24 different cities. There was some discussion that would have moved Sonny Werblin's New York Jets (with Joe Namath) to Los Angeles. Daniel Reeves' Los Angeles Rams would have gone to San Diego. Barron Hilton's San Diego Chargers was headed to New Orleans and the Oakland Raiders franchise would have ended up in either Portland, Oregon or Seattle. But Brooklyn Congressman Emanuel Cellar and his colleagues weren't in favor of the idea and it was dropped.
Werblin's Jets paid the Mara Giants $10 million to share the territory and the Raiders ownership gave San Francisco ownership $8 million to share the Bay Area territory. New Orleans was given a team in exchange for yes votes from Louisiana Senator Russell Long and Congressman Hale Boggs. The NFL owners pocketed expansion money from New Orleans and Cincinnati. The league did get one perk from Congress. They established that they could move any franchise if stadium capacity was fewer than 50,000 seats.
The Bloomington stadium had less than 50,000 seats.
In the 1970s, Vikings owners began clamoring for a new stadium and explored a move to Los Angeles. (Wilf could be offered a stadium deal in Los Angeles if things in St. Paul don't work out)
State legislators cobbled a deal to build a multi-purpose domed stadium for the Twins, Vikings and the University of Minnesota. The $80 million to fund the building came from a variety of taxes.
With a new stadium and two arenas built on the public dime, Minnesota seemed to have all of the sports facilities need in the 1980s. But that wasn't the case. The National Basketball Association was expanding and two Minneapolis businessmen, Harvey Ratner and Marvin Wolfenson, decided to go after an NBA franchise. In April 1987, the NBA junked its two team expansion in favor of a four-franchise expansion and took $32.5 million from "Harv and Marv" in exchange for a Minneapolis franchise. The two decided not to ask for public funding for an arena and that proved to be a massive mistake.
By 1994, "Harv and Marv" were broke. They sold the franchise to a group led by Boxing promoter Bob Arum and the franchise was headed to New Orleans. The NBA blocked the sale and found a local buyer. The Minnesota legislature allowed the city of Minneapolis to purchase the building. The NBA was still in the Twin-Cities, which is more than could be said about the NHL.
Minnesota might have been hockey country but various Minnesota North Stars ownerships struggled financially. The last North Stars owner Norman Green, a Canadian who had a sexual harassment suit hanging over him, moved the team to Dallas in 1993.
In 1997, the NHL was completing a nine-team expansion. St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman decided to go after one of the final expansion franchises and put together a more than $100 million proposal for funding to build an arena for an NHL team. The new arena was built on the site of the old St. Paul Civic Center. The NHL returned to the Twin-Cities in 2000.
The Twins ownership didn't like the Metrodome very much and almost sold the team to North Carolina interests led by Don Beaver. The team would have played in Greensboro, N.C. had voters approved a referendum to raise a restaurant tax to fund a stadium.
One of the reasons Greensboro needed a stadium? Young people would be energized to stay in the area and look for jobs in the Triad area of North Carolina because there was a baseball team there.
The Twins ownership began very serious discussions with state legislators in 2005 for a new Minneapolis stadium. Eventually a deal was worked out with the legislators on a funding mechanism, which called for the state to invest $392 million in a $522 million facility. There would a be sales tax hike in Hennepin County but Hennepin County residents would have to approve the hike in a referendum. The vote never occurred as politicians pulled an end around and claimed there was no time to hold a referendum.
The Republican governor Tim Pawlenty signed the funding bill into law and Minneapolis got a new baseball stadium.
Pawlenty, who seems to be running for the Republican nomination for President as one of those let's cut government spending to the bone didn't exactly act like a cheapskate when it came to sports spending.
Not only did he approve the $392 million Twins stadium deal in 2006, but two days prior to the Twins deal, Pawlenty put his signature on a deal to build a new football stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota. Nearly half of the $288.5 million cost for the facility came from the state. Students at the school, whether they liked football or not had to pay part of the cost for the stadium in their student fees
Pawlenty put at least a half of a billion dollars to build stadiums and that is without debt service.
Pawlenty did not run for re-election in 2010. The fiscal conservative left Minnesota with more than a six billion dollar deficit. He was in favor of a new Vikings stadium but did not want to spend public money. Pawlenty is now running around and doing the TV carnival barker route pushing a book and arguing against raising the federal debt ceiling.
Pawlenty's old Vikings problem is now the Democrat Mark Dayton and the GOP state houses' problem. Wilf's lease at the Metrodome ends after 2011 so there is pressure to get a new stadium-funding package done.
What Wilf wants is the same toy that Johnson has. A new stadium with overflowing revenue streams. Sometime after the Super Bowl, the Minnesota legislature will tackle the Vikings problem. Wilf wants an open-air stadium but if the state wants to put a roof on the building that's fine too. Wilf isn't going to pay for a roof but would come up with about one-third the cost of an open-air stadium.
The Jets-Giants building allegedly cost $1.6 billion. Jerry Jones' Dallas Cowboys home, Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas is also well over a billion dollars. An outdoor Minneapolis stadium is estimated to cost $700 million.
Wilf is next on line in St. Paul for a new stadium. Had he won the big game in 2000, he might have been sharing the Meadowlands with the Mara and Tisch family. But he came in second to Woody Johnson. Johnson's Jets are playing to get into the Super Bowl but Wilf's Vikings are playing for a bigger prize.
A new stadium.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Tim Pawlenty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim Pawlenty. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Friday, February 12, 2010
Vikings Stadium Plan? Obama vs. Pawlenty
http://dailycaller.com/2010/02/12/vikings-stadium-plan-obama-vs-pawlenty/
Vikings Stadium Plan? Obama vs. Pawlenty
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 02/12/10 at 9:36 am
Zygi Wilf’s National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings franchise didn’t win the big game this year, in fact Wilf’s team did not qualify for the big game in South Florida as Wilf’s Vikings lost to the finest team that Louisiana taxpayers could fund, Tom Benson’s New Orleans Saints.
Benson used some of the $23.5 million in state aid he got last July to, presumably, pay for players and could use some of the $23.5 million in state aid due next July to extend Drew Brees’ contract. The Louisiana handouts will be capped at $6 million starting in 2011.
Wilf is still in the hunt to play in the “Big Game” however. You see Wilf’s lease at the Metrodome in Minneapolis is done following the 2011 season and Wilf wants a new stadium somewhere in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market and is planning to pitch the Minnesota legislature in this session to get a stadium built or Wilf’s Vikings may have a new home out of state.
Wilf may come up big this time. Vikings ownership thinks the federal stimulus money might be available for the project, which would put Wilf at odds with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who is not a stimulus fan. Minnesota’s capital St. Paul would become a battleground in a way, President Obama’s stimulus plan, the Recovery Act of 2009, versus a lame duck governor who has Presidential aspirations in 2012 and would like to be the Republican nominee.
In December 2009, Pawlenty said there would be no new taxes to pay for a new Vikings stadium. Yet in the past week, Pawlenty seems to have changed his tune. Pawlenty may not like stimulus money but he has another idea that does involve taxpayers’ money.
Pawlenty thinks funds generated from a new Minnesota lottery could generate enough money to fund construction for a new football stadium. Pawlenty has also thrown out another idea, tax increment financing, which allows developers to pay less money than normal property taxes as long as that money is funneled back into the development project.
There are no proposals on the table though at this point.
Minnesota legislators have seen this act before and have responded in kind by finding public money for stadiums and arenas for more than a half century. The city of Minneapolis put up some $8.5 million in mid-1950s dollars to build Metropolitan Stadium for the minor league baseball team, the Minneapolis Millers. The stadium opened in 1956 as a minor league park but was upgraded when Calvin Griffith moved his Washington Senators to Minnesota after the 1961 season. “The Met” was enough of a lure for Lamar Hunt’s new American Football League that Hunt and his partners awarded an AFL franchise to Minnesota, but somehow the National Football League got to the Minnesota ownership and convinced them to jump leagues and start in 1961.
The National Football League and the American Football League merged on June 8, 1966 and one of the merger conditions was that every NFL stadium had to have a seating capacity of more than 50,000. Congress approved the merger in October 1966 and that started the clock ticking to get a new football facility built for the Vikings as “the Met” had just 48,700 chairs.
Minnesota ownership decided not to renew the lease at “the Met” and actively looked at other options including a move to Los Angeles when the lease ended in 1981.
In December 1979, construction started on the $68 million domed stadium in downtown Minneapolis that would house the Minnesota Twins and Vikings although neither team seemed too happy with the building. Twins ownership was unhappy with revenues generated inside the building but Griffith negotiated a bad deal in the 1970s, which allowed the Vikings ownership to keep a lion share of luxury box money. Additionally, Griffith didn’t get enough concession money. In the late 1990s, Don Beaver attempted to move the Twins franchise to a publicly funded stadium in Greensboro, N. C., if voters said yes.
The voters rejected the stadium plan in 1998.
On May 26 2006, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed legislation to build a new baseball park for the Twins. Hennepin County taxpayers would fund most of the costs for the new building through a 0.15 cent sales tax. The fiscally conservative Pawlenty gave the go ahead for the tax hike, which was designed to raise about $392 million; Minnesota’s ownership would pick up the rest of the tab which is about $140 million more.
On May 24, 2006, three days after the legislature said yes to spending $392 for a baseball park, Minnesota taxpayers were again asked to dig into their pockets to fund a football stadium for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers. The university is picking up 52 percent of the costs of the $288 million stadium while the state is paying for the rest.
The state legislature also picked up the costs of Minneapolis’ arena that was constructed in the late 19880s through private money. The National Basketball Association gave Minneapolis a franchise in the late 1980s but the team owners, Marvin Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner could not swing the $32.5 million entry fee into the NBA and the cost of the building, which was over $100 million. The legislature gave the approval for the city of Minneapolis to take over the building in 1995.
In 1997, the National Hockey League was looking for expansion cities. St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman got a franchise by promising to build a new taxpayers funded arena in the city. The NHL granted St/ Paul a franchise as long as the arena was built. Minnesota taxpayers put up about half of the $130 million cost of the building.
In 1965, Minnesota taxpayers put up money to build an arena in Bloomington next to “the Met” and got an NHL expansion teamin 1967. That team, the North Stars left in 1993 for Dallas. One of the reasons the North Stars franchise moved? The arena was not adequate for an NHL team.
Minnesota has spent an enormous amount of public funds on athletic facilities, probably more than a billion dollars when infrastructure and debt service costs are added. That is the price for being a major league area.
The Obama versus Pawlenty 2012 President race may never play out, but a mini version of the 2012 Presidential campaign could be taking place this winter and spring in the St. Paul statehouses and at the end of the day, Zygi Wilf’s Minnesota Vikings, a team that has never won the Super Bowl, may finally win the big game, which in this case is a new stadium with all of the bells and whistles of revenue producing luxury boxes, club seats, in-stadium restaurants and stores and lots of concession money.
That is better than winning a Super Bowl.
Vikings Stadium Plan? Obama vs. Pawlenty
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 02/12/10 at 9:36 am
Zygi Wilf’s National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings franchise didn’t win the big game this year, in fact Wilf’s team did not qualify for the big game in South Florida as Wilf’s Vikings lost to the finest team that Louisiana taxpayers could fund, Tom Benson’s New Orleans Saints.
Benson used some of the $23.5 million in state aid he got last July to, presumably, pay for players and could use some of the $23.5 million in state aid due next July to extend Drew Brees’ contract. The Louisiana handouts will be capped at $6 million starting in 2011.
Wilf is still in the hunt to play in the “Big Game” however. You see Wilf’s lease at the Metrodome in Minneapolis is done following the 2011 season and Wilf wants a new stadium somewhere in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market and is planning to pitch the Minnesota legislature in this session to get a stadium built or Wilf’s Vikings may have a new home out of state.
Wilf may come up big this time. Vikings ownership thinks the federal stimulus money might be available for the project, which would put Wilf at odds with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who is not a stimulus fan. Minnesota’s capital St. Paul would become a battleground in a way, President Obama’s stimulus plan, the Recovery Act of 2009, versus a lame duck governor who has Presidential aspirations in 2012 and would like to be the Republican nominee.
In December 2009, Pawlenty said there would be no new taxes to pay for a new Vikings stadium. Yet in the past week, Pawlenty seems to have changed his tune. Pawlenty may not like stimulus money but he has another idea that does involve taxpayers’ money.
Pawlenty thinks funds generated from a new Minnesota lottery could generate enough money to fund construction for a new football stadium. Pawlenty has also thrown out another idea, tax increment financing, which allows developers to pay less money than normal property taxes as long as that money is funneled back into the development project.
There are no proposals on the table though at this point.
Minnesota legislators have seen this act before and have responded in kind by finding public money for stadiums and arenas for more than a half century. The city of Minneapolis put up some $8.5 million in mid-1950s dollars to build Metropolitan Stadium for the minor league baseball team, the Minneapolis Millers. The stadium opened in 1956 as a minor league park but was upgraded when Calvin Griffith moved his Washington Senators to Minnesota after the 1961 season. “The Met” was enough of a lure for Lamar Hunt’s new American Football League that Hunt and his partners awarded an AFL franchise to Minnesota, but somehow the National Football League got to the Minnesota ownership and convinced them to jump leagues and start in 1961.
The National Football League and the American Football League merged on June 8, 1966 and one of the merger conditions was that every NFL stadium had to have a seating capacity of more than 50,000. Congress approved the merger in October 1966 and that started the clock ticking to get a new football facility built for the Vikings as “the Met” had just 48,700 chairs.
Minnesota ownership decided not to renew the lease at “the Met” and actively looked at other options including a move to Los Angeles when the lease ended in 1981.
In December 1979, construction started on the $68 million domed stadium in downtown Minneapolis that would house the Minnesota Twins and Vikings although neither team seemed too happy with the building. Twins ownership was unhappy with revenues generated inside the building but Griffith negotiated a bad deal in the 1970s, which allowed the Vikings ownership to keep a lion share of luxury box money. Additionally, Griffith didn’t get enough concession money. In the late 1990s, Don Beaver attempted to move the Twins franchise to a publicly funded stadium in Greensboro, N. C., if voters said yes.
The voters rejected the stadium plan in 1998.
On May 26 2006, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed legislation to build a new baseball park for the Twins. Hennepin County taxpayers would fund most of the costs for the new building through a 0.15 cent sales tax. The fiscally conservative Pawlenty gave the go ahead for the tax hike, which was designed to raise about $392 million; Minnesota’s ownership would pick up the rest of the tab which is about $140 million more.
On May 24, 2006, three days after the legislature said yes to spending $392 for a baseball park, Minnesota taxpayers were again asked to dig into their pockets to fund a football stadium for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers. The university is picking up 52 percent of the costs of the $288 million stadium while the state is paying for the rest.
The state legislature also picked up the costs of Minneapolis’ arena that was constructed in the late 19880s through private money. The National Basketball Association gave Minneapolis a franchise in the late 1980s but the team owners, Marvin Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner could not swing the $32.5 million entry fee into the NBA and the cost of the building, which was over $100 million. The legislature gave the approval for the city of Minneapolis to take over the building in 1995.
In 1997, the National Hockey League was looking for expansion cities. St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman got a franchise by promising to build a new taxpayers funded arena in the city. The NHL granted St/ Paul a franchise as long as the arena was built. Minnesota taxpayers put up about half of the $130 million cost of the building.
In 1965, Minnesota taxpayers put up money to build an arena in Bloomington next to “the Met” and got an NHL expansion teamin 1967. That team, the North Stars left in 1993 for Dallas. One of the reasons the North Stars franchise moved? The arena was not adequate for an NHL team.
Minnesota has spent an enormous amount of public funds on athletic facilities, probably more than a billion dollars when infrastructure and debt service costs are added. That is the price for being a major league area.
The Obama versus Pawlenty 2012 President race may never play out, but a mini version of the 2012 Presidential campaign could be taking place this winter and spring in the St. Paul statehouses and at the end of the day, Zygi Wilf’s Minnesota Vikings, a team that has never won the Super Bowl, may finally win the big game, which in this case is a new stadium with all of the bells and whistles of revenue producing luxury boxes, club seats, in-stadium restaurants and stores and lots of concession money.
That is better than winning a Super Bowl.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Is Obama more important than Favre in the Minnesota Vikings future?
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m1d24-Is-Obama-more-important-than-Favre-in-the-Minnesota-Vikings-future#
Is Obama more important than Favre in the Minnesota Vikings future?
By Evan Weiner
January 24, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- Will Brett Favre or Barack Obama, when all is said and done, be more important in both the short and long term future of Zygi Wilf’s Minnesota Vikings franchise? It is an intriguing question because Favre’s short term success with the Minneapolis-based team probably has no impact on the business of football and the business of football for Wilf and his predecessor Red McCombs (one of the people who owned the Clear Channel radio network in the halcyon days of that business that included among the stable of talent Rush Limbaugh, a carnival barker who stated publicly that he hoped Obama failed) whose goals is and were to get a new Vikings football stadium built.
So far, McCombs and now Wilf have struck out in their years of attempts in getting the Minnesota legislature to fund a football stadium project and what is more frustrating for both the Vikings ownership group and the National Football League is that the legislature has found more to build a new baseball park for the Twins in Minneapolis and a stadium for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team.
The Golden Gophers new digs opened last fall.
The debt on the Twins park will be paid down by various taxes and some money from the Twins ownership. The park will open in the spring.
The Golden Gophers stadium is also taxpayers funded and students, whether they use the facility or not, have to pay a $25 fee as part of the legislature’s agreement to fund the stadium.
The Twins and Golden Gophers formerly played at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, a facility which caused about $68 million of taxpayers’ money to build. The stadium opened in 1982 and apparently no one was pleased with the facility as Twins and Vikings ownership spent years trying to get out of the building.
Wilf still has two years to go on his Metrodome lease.
On Friday, two days before the National Football League’s NFC Conference Championship game, Wilf’s representatives came out with a new stadium plan. The timing of the announcement may have been a coincidence as the Minnesota governing bodies start their session in two weeks but Wilf and the Vikings have sneaked a new play into the stadium playbook.
Use federal stimulus money as help build a suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul football facility. Apparently Wilf has heard from a number of developers who want in on the Viking stadium and the Vikings stadium-planning team has figured out that a two cent on a dollar rise on hospitality taxes, motel and hotel taxes and maybe car rentals, would be a good thing as that would hit tourists not the locals pocketbook, and the usage of Build America Bonds could help swing the financing. The there is the Recovery Act or the Obama stimulus plan.
The Recovery Act, which was passed by Congress in February 2009 and signed into law by President Obama on February 17 of that year, was a $787 billion plan to get the economy which broke in September 2008 moving. The Recovery Act was targeted at infrastructure development and enhancement. For instance, the Act plans investment in the domestic renewable energy industry and the weatherizing of 75 percent of federal buildings as well as more than one million private homes around the country.
Construction and repair of roads and bridges as well as scientific research and the expansion of broadband and wireless service are also included among the many projects that the Recovery Act will fund.
Apparently Wilf and the Vikings ownership feel that a stadium qualifies as part of infrastructure development and enhancement.
Whether a football stadium qualifies for the Obama stimulus plan is something that needs to be researched. Another problem that Wilf faces is that the Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is a lame duck and is not running for re-election in the fall. Pawlenty, a Republican, has other ideas and may be running for President. Pawlenty is a critic of the Obama federal stimulus plan and that should make for an interesting time for Wilf knowing that Minnesota has a lame duck governor who seems more intent on running for President than working at his job which is at least look the Governor of the State of Minnesota.
The Minnesota legislature goes back to work on February 4, which is three days before the Super Bowl, a game that could feature Favre and the Vikings. In terms of being success on the field and whether that leads to politicians opening the coffers for sports teams to build new stadiums and arenas, there seems to be no linkage between the two. Bad teams also get new facilities.
Wilf’s real football season starts on February 4 as that is when he takes the field against Minnesota politicians with cash for a stadium on the line.
evanjweiner@yahoo
Is Obama more important than Favre in the Minnesota Vikings future?
By Evan Weiner
January 24, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- Will Brett Favre or Barack Obama, when all is said and done, be more important in both the short and long term future of Zygi Wilf’s Minnesota Vikings franchise? It is an intriguing question because Favre’s short term success with the Minneapolis-based team probably has no impact on the business of football and the business of football for Wilf and his predecessor Red McCombs (one of the people who owned the Clear Channel radio network in the halcyon days of that business that included among the stable of talent Rush Limbaugh, a carnival barker who stated publicly that he hoped Obama failed) whose goals is and were to get a new Vikings football stadium built.
So far, McCombs and now Wilf have struck out in their years of attempts in getting the Minnesota legislature to fund a football stadium project and what is more frustrating for both the Vikings ownership group and the National Football League is that the legislature has found more to build a new baseball park for the Twins in Minneapolis and a stadium for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team.
The Golden Gophers new digs opened last fall.
The debt on the Twins park will be paid down by various taxes and some money from the Twins ownership. The park will open in the spring.
The Golden Gophers stadium is also taxpayers funded and students, whether they use the facility or not, have to pay a $25 fee as part of the legislature’s agreement to fund the stadium.
The Twins and Golden Gophers formerly played at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, a facility which caused about $68 million of taxpayers’ money to build. The stadium opened in 1982 and apparently no one was pleased with the facility as Twins and Vikings ownership spent years trying to get out of the building.
Wilf still has two years to go on his Metrodome lease.
On Friday, two days before the National Football League’s NFC Conference Championship game, Wilf’s representatives came out with a new stadium plan. The timing of the announcement may have been a coincidence as the Minnesota governing bodies start their session in two weeks but Wilf and the Vikings have sneaked a new play into the stadium playbook.
Use federal stimulus money as help build a suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul football facility. Apparently Wilf has heard from a number of developers who want in on the Viking stadium and the Vikings stadium-planning team has figured out that a two cent on a dollar rise on hospitality taxes, motel and hotel taxes and maybe car rentals, would be a good thing as that would hit tourists not the locals pocketbook, and the usage of Build America Bonds could help swing the financing. The there is the Recovery Act or the Obama stimulus plan.
The Recovery Act, which was passed by Congress in February 2009 and signed into law by President Obama on February 17 of that year, was a $787 billion plan to get the economy which broke in September 2008 moving. The Recovery Act was targeted at infrastructure development and enhancement. For instance, the Act plans investment in the domestic renewable energy industry and the weatherizing of 75 percent of federal buildings as well as more than one million private homes around the country.
Construction and repair of roads and bridges as well as scientific research and the expansion of broadband and wireless service are also included among the many projects that the Recovery Act will fund.
Apparently Wilf and the Vikings ownership feel that a stadium qualifies as part of infrastructure development and enhancement.
Whether a football stadium qualifies for the Obama stimulus plan is something that needs to be researched. Another problem that Wilf faces is that the Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is a lame duck and is not running for re-election in the fall. Pawlenty, a Republican, has other ideas and may be running for President. Pawlenty is a critic of the Obama federal stimulus plan and that should make for an interesting time for Wilf knowing that Minnesota has a lame duck governor who seems more intent on running for President than working at his job which is at least look the Governor of the State of Minnesota.
The Minnesota legislature goes back to work on February 4, which is three days before the Super Bowl, a game that could feature Favre and the Vikings. In terms of being success on the field and whether that leads to politicians opening the coffers for sports teams to build new stadiums and arenas, there seems to be no linkage between the two. Bad teams also get new facilities.
Wilf’s real football season starts on February 4 as that is when he takes the field against Minnesota politicians with cash for a stadium on the line.
evanjweiner@yahoo
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