DanBailey.net

I’m getting more and more involved in the Save the Vikings campaign. I believe they should be kept here — and while my fandom does color my opinions somewhat, I’d like to believe that I can think about this rationally. Keeping the Vikings in MN will save thousands of local jobs, create thousands of new ones during the construction of the stadium, and maintain the tax revenues currently coming in from ticket and memorabilia sales, players’ income tax, and so on.

They’re saying that a retractable roof stadium will cost approximately $1 billion to design and build. Fine, that’s understandable, given the magnitude of the project. There’s some methods that can be used to fund this:

1. Pass the Racino bill, which will generate approximately $50 million per year from slot machines located at Canterbury Downs. After the stadium has been funded from this ($250 million after five years), this revenue is shifted to Minnesota schools and colleges — a huge win. More on this below.

2. Approach the NFL about using revenue sharing to help fund the new stadium. Ask for $150 million.

3. Ask the city of Minneapolis to kick in $25 million. This seems fair, given the amount of local profit the Vikings bring to the city. If Minneapolis won’t do it, another location willing to shell out the money can be found to build the stadium.

4. Sale of the naming rights must be used to fund the stadium’s construction. The average cost of naming rights is $54.6 million over 19 years. Sell the rights for 20 years at $50 million.

5. Ask the Wilfs to kick in just over half. $525 million.

There’s a billion dollars without increasing income taxes.

Graph 1: Cost Sharing of New Stadium (Specific)

So the Wilfs end up paying slightly over half the cost of the new stadium, and the state of Minnesota and Minneapolis combine to cover just over a quarter of it, with the remaining quarter coming from corporate sources (naming, and the NFL).

More generally, we can look at it this way:

Graph 2: Cost Sharing of New Stadium *Generalized).

For this graph, I am opting to lump the Wilf family and the NFL together as their interests are aligned. I have lumped Minneapolis and Minnesota together as a whole, since those revenues are ultimately derived from the taxpayer. And the last category represents a neutral third-party that is willing to pay for the naming rights to the stadium — ideally that would be a Minnesota-based corporation like 3M or General Mills, but is not absolutely necessary.

Ultimately, if Racino can generate the annual sum projected of $50 million, then the bill should be passed with the caveat that after $250 million has been raised and applied to the cost of the stadium’s construction, any further funds should be used toward the K-12 educational system in Minnesota. This will have the effect of improving the public education system while curbing the rise of property taxes, as increases in those are currently used by municipalities to make up the shortfall in funding at the state level.

This is just a general proposal. I am not an economist, a tax specialist, or an NFL owner. I’m just a Vikings fan who would very much like to see the team stay in Minnesota. I think that a stadium bill will not only preserve existing jobs in the Minneapolis area, it will create thousands of new jobs for the duration of the construction of the stadium, the removal of the Metrodome, and the development of the area it currently occupies. To get the funding in-place to do this is going to require some creative thinking and an agreement among the parties involved that keeping the Vikings here is a good thing for Minnesota, rather than the bickering and finger-pointing we’ve seen to-date. It will also mean that those of us who want to see the Vikings stay need to pressure our representatives to not just take a stand (which most of them have been avoiding), but to hold accountable those who will not take a side.

We’ve waffled long enough. Let’s get moving on this.