Bob CollinsBudget, cuts in child protection, same-sex marriage, guns, voter ID, abortion — they’ve all put in an appearance in one fashion or another at the Capitol this year. When is the Vikings stadium going to make an appearance?
The new majority has a member to carry a Vikings stadium bill, but it hasn’t been filed yet. It will eventually.
As with Target Field, the goal is to (a) make more money by (b) making it more expensive for you to attend. The trick is figuring out (c) how to make you not mind.
MPR’s Tim Nelson has a story today that examines some of the ways this is going to be done.
Tomorrow on MPR’s Midmorning, we’re going to discuss all of this and, hopefully, say something about public financing of stadiums that hasn’t been said before.
The guests are:
Ted Mondale, chairman of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission
Judith Grant Long, associate professor of urban planning at Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Neil deMause, co-author of “Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit”
I’ll be live-blogging the hour to provide your analysis. Supply it in the “comments” section below.
To lead us off, here’s a study issued last year on sports franchises and the economic impact of communities. It finely details the various details that teams get.
