Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

[Slimprofits]

http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2011/0...kings-stadium/

Ramsey County said the Vikings will commit $407 million to the project — 44 percent of the stadium costs and 39 percent of the overall costs. The county's share would be $350 million, to be financed by a half-cent sales tax increase.

Meanwhile....


http://www.businessweek.com/ap/finan.../D9N3VBH00.htm

Progress on erasing a $5 billion deficit has been hard to detect since Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and a Republican-dominated slate of lawmakers took office in January.

[don]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

The billionaires club wins!

[Slimprofits]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

Isn't it simply amazing to watch these team owners collaborate with ELECTED officials and get away with this scam over and over again?

What a ******* country!!!

[aaron]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

After we handed over a trillion dollars to banksters, let's face it, a football stadium is nothing.

I am with Mega... let it all crash and burn. We can rebuild.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

Dave Zirin's Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love. Hardback, it's on sale at Amazon 9 dollars and change. A hoot of a read on how the rich own the politicians.

[mmr]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

It could be worse, at least they didn't build a shopping mall / arena complex to house a hockey team (from a league with no national TV contract) in the middle of the desert...

Glendale, Ariz. approves $25 million for Coyotes

The Glendale City Council agreed 5-2 late Tuesday to pay the National Hockey League up to an additional $25 million so the Phoenix Coyotes could stay another year in the desert.

The vote came at the end of a standing-room-only meeting that stretched longer than three hours.

The council meeting was the most fractious since Glendale's battle to keep the professional hockey team began publicly two years ago with the team's bankruptcy. Since then, Glendale has sought to find an owner willing to play at the city-owned Jobing.com Arena for years to come.

During a meeting break, a resident began shouting about the city's debt burden, which is higher than most cities of the same size.

"This city is bankrupt!" the man shouted.

Coyotes fans immediately silenced him with boos.

Glendale officials have argued the city's investments to keep the team are necessary to protect its investment in the sports and entertainment district off Loop 101 and Glendale Avenue....

The Coyotes still lost $37 million last season and posted among the lowest attendance in the league. But the Coyotes are the arena's main tenant, attracting thousands of fans to Glendale during 41 games per season.

Glendale uses sales taxes from fans' dining and shopping at the adjacent Westgate City Center as well as team payments to pay off the $180 million the city spent to open the arena in 2003.

The pledge allows Glendale to continue work on an arena lease with team buyer Matthew Hulsizer through the 2011-12 season. In return, Glendale agrees to cover team and arena losses for a second season of up to $25 million, until a team buyer takes over.

Glendale made a similar bargain a year ago.

The city paid $25 million this month to the NHL to fulfill the pledge it made last year to keep the Coyotes through the recently ended season.

In both situations, Glendale officials seemed on the verge of completing a deal with a team buyer. But they said the NHL was prepared to move the team unless the city agreed to cover losses.

The money for the first pledge came from a long-term utilities account. Glendale officials said they had not yet decided where they would pull the second $25 million from but that the city has budgeted for it.

One difference in the current agreement: the NHL obtains the right to renew the agreement yearly for 10 years....

[don]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

My brother just moved from Minnesota. Calls his escape "Bond-sian".

[cjppjc]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

No escape for the high taxed residents of Nassau County LI. A minor league baseball stadium also. There are plenty of major and minor league games in the area. The Nets are getting a new stadium in Brooklyn. Yankees and Mets, Jets and Giants and Jets, all got new stadiums. Living the dream is more than an expression, it's a way of life.

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- Long Island's National Hockey League team, the New York Islanders, may get a new arena financed by a $400 million bond issue after the proposal is put to a vote on Aug. 1, said Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano.

The sports complex will include a minor league baseball stadium and will replace the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Mangano said today at a press conference today at the arena in Uniondale.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1M58BhBWh

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

Dave Zirin (back when the dome collapsed)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-z..._b_796848.html

Yes, where are the poets?

"I have long believed that it would take an "Act of God" for Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf to get a new, publicly-financed football stadium. After all, despite Wilf's pleadings and threats, taxpayers are less than eager these days to subsidize the billionaires among us. This is particularly true in Minnesota, where the Twins just opened a new publicly-funded ballpark despite the fact that in 2007 a freaking bridge collapsed in the Twin Cities, sending 13 people to their deaths. Clearly there are other priorities for public funds.

"Cue the Neoliberal Almighty. In a scene that looked like an outtake from Kirk Cameron's latest bible film, the Metrodome's roof collapsed under 17 inches of snow. The debris hadn't even been cleared before team president Mark Wilf (no relation to Zygi... just kidding it's his kid brother) said that it would be "premature to discuss" whether the collapse "changes the debate over a new stadium." In other words, the Wilf family wants you to know that it's absolutely premature to discuss this thing that they don't want to discuss. His fellow owner, John Mara of the New York Giants, was only too happy to be "premature," saying that the roof rupture "bolsters their argument why they need a new stadium. For this to happen nowadays is pretty incredible."

"...Why do the otherwise eminently sane people of the Twin Cities leap to the land of conspiracy? I asked Minnesota's finest labor history professor, Peter Rachleff for his take:
Minnesota has changed. Once a site for top notch education, well-kept recreational facilities, progressive views about race, and respect for unionized workers have been frayed by two decades of neoliberal practices and policies from the factory floor to the state capitol and from emergency rooms to city halls. Politicians like Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the wannabe-presidential contender, have shirked their responsibility for this miserable change in climate. Known in other circles as 'Teflon Tim' for his fast footwork in the face of the consequences of his (in)actions, such as the collapse on his watch of the I-35 bridge, it is a fitting irony that the recent monster snow storm collapsed the teflon roof of the Metrodome. Where are the poets when we need them?"

[chr5648]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

Dave Zirin (back when the dome collapsed)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-z..._b_796848.html

Yes, where are the poets?

"I have long believed that it would take an "Act of God" for Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf to get a new, publicly-financed football stadium. After all, despite Wilf's pleadings and threats, taxpayers are less than eager these days to subsidize the billionaires among us. This is particularly true in Minnesota, where the Twins just opened a new publicly-funded ballpark despite the fact that in 2007 a freaking bridge collapsed in the Twin Cities, sending 13 people to their deaths. Clearly there are other priorities for public funds.

"Cue the Neoliberal Almighty. In a scene that looked like an outtake from Kirk Cameron's latest bible film, the Metrodome's roof collapsed under 17 inches of snow. The debris hadn't even been cleared before team president Mark Wilf (no relation to Zygi... just kidding it's his kid brother) said that it would be "premature to discuss" whether the collapse "changes the debate over a new stadium." In other words, the Wilf family wants you to know that it's absolutely premature to discuss this thing that they don't want to discuss. His fellow owner, John Mara of the New York Giants, was only too happy to be "premature," saying that the roof rupture "bolsters their argument why they need a new stadium. For this to happen nowadays is pretty incredible."

"...Why do the otherwise eminently sane people of the Twin Cities leap to the land of conspiracy? I asked Minnesota's finest labor history professor, Peter Rachleff for his take:
Minnesota has changed. Once a site for top notch education, well-kept recreational facilities, progressive views about race, and respect for unionized workers have been frayed by two decades of neoliberal practices and policies from the factory floor to the state capitol and from emergency rooms to city halls. Politicians like Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the wannabe-presidential contender, have shirked their responsibility for this miserable change in climate. Known in other circles as 'Teflon Tim' for his fast footwork in the face of the consequences of his (in)actions, such as the collapse on his watch of the I-35 bridge, it is a fitting irony that the recent monster snow storm collapsed the teflon roof of the Metrodome. Where are the poets when we need them?"

In the NJ real estate circle he has been known to be a key political contributor.

http://www.newsmeat.com/sports_polit...gmunt_Wilf.php

[Slimprofits]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

cjppjc,

$400 million?

Yeah right. That sounds like a 1995 price.

[cjppjc]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

cjppjc,

$400 million?

Yeah right. That sounds like a 1995 price.

I say they bring it in within 250% of budget. One billion tops!

[cjppjc]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

http://toomanymenonthesite.com/2011/...ts-down-arena/

The hot-button topic in the NHL, especially in the New York area for the past week, has been the referendum to for Nassau County residents to vote on a new Nassau Coliseum, where the New York Islanders call home.

The arena proposal was destroyed at the polls, even after the date was in essence chosen to get the arena to pass by having it staged on a Monday in August when many people wouldn’t bother to pass up a day in the pool or at the beach in favor of voting. Well, that didn’t work out, as the “No” vote won about 6-to-4.

[BigBagel]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

In defense of the Jets and Giants they did pay for their stadium. The Yankees however received welfare to build their new stadium. I had the misfortune of dealing with several Yankee executives up close and personal. Nasty, entitled people. This Bronx boy always roots for the opposition.

[don]

Re: Vikings get a new stadium, Minnesota taxpayers will pony up millions

http://toomanymenonthesite.com/2011/...ts-down-arena/

The hot-button topic in the NHL, especially in the New York area for the past week, has been the referendum to for Nassau County residents to vote on a new Nassau Coliseum, where the New York Islanders call home.

The arena proposal was destroyed at the polls, even after the date was in essence chosen to get the arena to pass by having it staged on a Monday in August when many people wouldn’t bother to pass up a day in the pool or at the beach in favor of voting. Well, that didn’t work out, as the “No” vote won about 6-to-4.

A chance for the majority to strike back after standing impotently on the sidelines as the Show Goes On.

Luckily, at least to date, decisions on new sports welfare largess is not solely in the hands of the 'elected' officials.