Silver Lining for Vikings Fans (Politically)
This is a day to empathize with the agony amongst the long-suffering fans of the Minnesota Vikings. With a trip to the Super Bowl in their buttery grasp, they fumbled it all away. In a game they largely dominated from start-to-finish, the Vikes lost in overtime to the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship Game, 31-28. Miscues, interceptions, and some questionable calls will have Vikings Nation asking "what if" for the next nine months.
Yes, there is misery in Minnesota. But there is also a silver lining, and I'm not talking about the joy in Green Bay at the spectacular fall of Minnesota QB Brett Favre. Vikings owner Zygi Wilf was locked and loaded to arrive at the Minnesota State Legislature on February 4 - three days before the Super Bowl - to press for a new $1 billion stadium with $700 million to be paid by the taxpayers. The Vikings, like many teams, is holding up the specter of moving the franchise to Los Angeles if they don't get a nine-figure welfare check. With the state's phony populist absentee governor Tim "Glass Jaw" Pawlenty saying little more than, "We have to keep the Vikings no matter what," Wilf was ready to roll the state's taxpayers. But now that the team has failed to reach the Big Game, the wind is out of Wilf's sails and Zygi is no longer coated with stardust. This isn't to say that Wilf won't emerge triumphant, but without the team in the Super Bowl, it's much more apparent that he will have a fight on his hands.
As Minnesota resident and dogged stadium opponent Willard Shapira wrote, "Most communities around the U.S. have caved in to such outrageous demands but socially concerned Minnesotans are fighting the Vikings tooth and nail. Others around the U.S. battling big-money and establishment power politics would take heart from a public victory over the Vikings and their gang of arrogant, plutocratic conspirators in business, politics and the media."
Remember that Minnesotans repeatedly rejected the Twins billionaire owner Carl Pohlad's efforts to get a new baseball stadium on the public dime. Despite their votes, Pawlenty rammed the $500 million facility through the legislature and it opens for business this spring. Now the owner called "the Big Bad Wilf" wants his piece of the public pie, recession be damned. The Vikings failure to make the Super Bowl makes his effort far more perilous.
On the flip side, and ever so ironically, New Orleans first trip to the Super Bowl makes it a near impossibility for the Saints owners, the Benson family, to fulfill their pre-Katrina dreams of moving their franchise to the City of Angels. If they made that move, I'm convinced that the Crescent City would implode with grief. Now, as a Super Bowl team, that move becomes a political impossibility.
Therefore in one tense contest to see who would ascend to the Super Bowl, two sets of owners saw their most treasured dreams to burn tax payers and break hearts go up in smoke. That's something all fans should cheer. Even in Minnesota.
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I'm so happy to have come across a sports writer who discusses the real welfare crisis in this country--welfare for the rich, financed by the public.
Great article!
I've watched the Vikes lose FOUR nfc championship games, 2 in overtime.
They are a franchise stuck in purgatory -- always good enough to win divisions and make the playoffs, but never good enough to make it to the promised land.
The game coulda gone either way. It was amazing overall. And Saints fans are well aware of the fact that if it weren't for Paul Tagliabue, we wouldn't even be celebrating like this, as the team would be in San Antonio where Benson wanted it to go.
I wish Minnesota continued luck in fighting against this latest bid - at this time when we are all in dire economic straits - to pour money into their sports franchise's coffers instead of into their own communities. We here in New Orleans know how much that sort of funding is needed. It is an extra bonus for us that the Saints players are conscious of this as well and do their best to give it back. That Halas trophy being for the city of New Orleans is no joke. At. All.
The Minnesota stadium question provides a good case to use referendum procedures. Let the people in the affected county(or counties) vote yea/nay for the construction of it. This would be democracy at work, but I don't think it will happen even in a progressive state like Minnesota. There are too many entrenched interests going against it.
Dave you've done it again. Keep it up.
have and always will be a boondoggle. there has not been a single legitimate study that proves their economic worth. that being said, i'm not sure why you chose to throw benson into this conversation. 5 years ago it would have been an accurate reference but from all reports - inside and out - he has zero desire to look at any sort of move. and i know you relished including pawlenty, but let's be intellectually honest here - he's not saying anything different publicly than anyone else as governor would say.
I still feel the Vikes all but gave the game to the Saints. As for these owners wanting to receive, LOL! I don't think the Los Angeles Vikings sounds right...
Here in Minnesota, it was clear from the moment Favre signed that this was the Vikings' $12M investment for a potential profit of several hundred million in public subsidy of team value thru a new stadium. Favre and a Super Bowl, and the peons would happily open their wallets. It was a brilliant idea and all season one could see Zygi and Vikings mgmt rubbing their hands with glee at their own brilliance. It explained the ferocious umbrage with which they reacted to any more moderate suggestion coming from Minnesota officials. As a result, many folks here who otherwise would root for the Vikings cheered happily to see the Billionaire's brilliant strategy thwarted.
Hi folks. The Pawlenty jab was not an ad hominem attack. He is fashioning himself as a teabagger presidential candidate opposed to all spending. And yet he'll back this boondoggle.
As for Benson, it is an absolute fact that the Saints have been on the target list for Ed Roskie, the LA billionaire trying to lure a team. And Benson was listening.
Care to cite some sort of article that states that Benson was listening? Merely insinuating he could have been wanting the Saints to lose is ludicrous at best.
Teams can't leave after winning Super Bowls? Al Davis left Oakland just two seasons after winning it. A lot of people think he was trying to lose the year they won it, insisting on Pastorini over Plunkett. Of course, Pastorini got hurt and Plunkett took them to the Super Bowl. It was a shaky season but the team had a lot of talent and they came together and won. ...in spite of an owner looking to sabotage them and leave Oakland? Who knows? Anyhow, this was the 1980 season. After the 1981 season, the Raiders were gone.
After winning a SB might be the best time to sell. Politics aside, can you imagine the value of franchise being higher at any other time?
Thank you for continuing to expose the hyprocrisy of the so-called "free market" with this article about taxpayers funding pro venues. As a former fan of the Los Angeles Rams (yes I admit it-I rooted for the Rams when they were in L.A. and Anaheim) I do not miss pro football. Fans all across the country need to wake up and oppose these welfare for the rich schemes. If people think they need a pro sports franchise, let the owners pay for it. Our taxes should go towards more worthy ends such as schools, parks, libraries and repairing our infrastructure. Finally, hey St. Louis taxpayers do you still think it was worth it in having the Rams?
As the grief over Howard Zinn's passing reverberates, it's important to remember the countless people he moved and inspired with his words.
It's a huge loss, but we've got a deep bench. Dave Zirin is Exhibit A.
Pro sports stadium cost a lot and give little back to the communities that build them in return. In the Seattle area where I live we still have until 2016 before the King Dome debt is finally paid off by King County. The taxpayer in King County is still paying for this facility that hasn't existed for a decade. Not the Mariners and Seahawks.
How many full time year round jobs does a pro football team provide? I would guess in the neighborhood of 100-150, when you add up team executives and coaches, players and other assorted wage earning administrative personnel. That hardly seems to justify a public expense of $700 million.
I could support these taxpayer funded stadiums on one condition, and one condition only: The public entity that builds and maintains it gets at least a 49 percent share in the equity of the team(s) playing in the facility.
Why should the people build a palace for a pro sports team, and allow the team to collect all the concessions revenues and the windfall increase in the market value of the team? I mean these are such awful examples of deals made with one party bent over (the taxpayer) that I can't believe these haven't been stopped already.
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Dave Zirin is the author of the book: "Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports" (Haymarket). You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by going to dave@edgeofsports.com.
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