Posted on 05/21/2010 8:17:48 AM PDT by Willie Green
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A poll shows the Minnesota Vikings strength on the playing field hasn’t helped the football team win fans of its push for a new, taxpayer-financed stadium.
The Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute poll published Friday showed that a solid majority has no interest in seeing taxes used for a stadium.
The poll of 701 adults found that 64 percent oppose the idea and 30 percent back it, with the rest undecided. The May 13-16 poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.8 percentage points.
Vikings officials have been seeking taxpayer stadium help for at least a decade. The team’s Metrodome lease expires after the 2011 season.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bostonherald.com ...
Vikings would be well advised to read the political tea leaves. Not a good time to be asking taspayers for money. Suggest they put that on a back burner for a future year.
This looks like a job for Senator Franken!
Scroom.
Why the heck don’t they just stay in the Dome and jack the ticket price if the owner needs more income ?
Ah, the public doesn’t want a taxpayer funded stadium? Not the first time. So when does taxpayer funded construction start?
The NFL is Socialist.....like most pro sports
Time for the Vikings to learn how the Free Market works.
I never have understood the mentality which shells out taxpayer megabucks to build another stadium where taxpayers can go shell out a wad for a seat, waaay too much for beverages and food, and watch something they'd see better on the television at home. Then the same folks buy incredibly overpriced paraphenalia and garments and run around hooting about 'their' team.
While I can understand the sense of propriety from the standpoint that they paid for it, someone else is collecting.
But then, there is this:
Ole and Sven die in a snowmobiling accident, drunker than skunks, and go to Hell.
The Devil observes that they are really enjoying themselves.
He says to them, 'Doesn't the heat and smoke bother you?
Ole replies, 'Vell, ya know, ve're from nordern Minnesooota, da land of snow an ice, an ve're yust happy fer a chance ta varm up a little bit, ya know.'
The devil decides that these two aren't miserable enough and turns up the heat even more.
When he returns to the room of the two guys from Minnesota , the devil finds them in light jackets and hats, grilling walleye and drinking beer.
The devil is astonished and exclaims, 'Everyone down here is in abject misery, and you two seem to be enjoying yourselves?'
Sven replies, 'Vell, ya know, ve don't git too much varm veather up dere at da Falls, so ve've yust got ta haff a fish fry vhen da veather's dis nice.'
The devil is absolutely furious. He can hardly see straight. Finally he comes up with the answer.
The two guys love the heat because they have been cold all their lives.
The devil decides to turn all the heat off in Hell.
The next morning, the temperature is 60 below zero, icicles are hanging everywhere, and people are shivering so bad that they are unable to wail, moan or gnash their teeth.
The devil smiles and heads for the room with Ole and Sven.
He gets there and finds them back in their parkas, bomber hats, and mittens.
They are jumping up and down, cheering, yelling and screaming like mad men.
The devil is dumbfounded, 'I don't understand, when I turn up the heat you're happy.
Now it's freezing cold and you're still happy.
What is wrong with you two?'
They both look at the devil in surprise and say, 'Vell, don't ya know, if hell is froze over, dat must mean da Vikings von da Super Bowl!'
Exactly. In Charlotte, NC they put a referendum on the ballot to finance the basketball arena and something around 60% of voters said no. They built it anyway.
The Vikings MIGHT get a little further with a taxpayer funded stadium if the owner wasn’t from New Jersey, or Texas like the last owner.
It’s one thing to make a local billionaire richer through our taxes like we did for the pussbag Pohlad. But it’s harder to care about someone that just comes in from out of state to rob us. Screw um!!!!!!!!
In a few years they won't even need voters.
“Must ... have ... taxpayer funded ... luxury boxes”
Exactly! I hope the people of MN keep fighting this. Stadiums are always a drain on public funds, and exist to provide politicians and rich dummies a nice place to watch the game and hatch new plans to use taxpayer money for their own benefit.
I hope the people of Minnesota fair better than those of us in Houston.
We have THREE new taxpayer funded stadiums - while the Astrodome, a great venue with superb access and parking - sits vacant.
The new football stadium was built in the PARKING LOT of the Astrodome, hosing up parking and traffic.
The new basketball and baseball stadiums are built DOWNTOWN, where of course the parking is plentiful (NOT) and cheap (NOT EVEN CLOSE).
But it enriched the downtown developers, so they sold them to a gullible public.
We even got the bonus of a brand new bureaucracy, the Houston Sports Authority, with its very own TAX on rental cars and hotel rooms, the highest in the US.
Hopefully Minnesotans will deservedly urinate all over this plan before they take in the shorts (without vaseline) like Houstonians.
I forgot to mention - the Astrodome is still not paid off, and neither are the millions we spent to renovate it and put in luxury skyboxes. And it sits empty and unused.
Ain’t goobermint projects great ?
while the Astrodome, a great venue with superb access and parking - sits vacant.
So whatever happened to all the Katrina refugees who were living there?
And who cleaned up all the crap when they finally moved out?
They tried to pull that here, but we chased them over the river to DC (which was stupid enough to swallow the line that the stadium would only cost $400m, double-pinky-swear). Of course, it actually cost about double that, and the place is usually half empty (there are only so many masochists willing to watch the Nationals humiliate themselves).
“””””””””Hopefully Minnesotans will deservedly urinate all over this plan before they take in the shorts (without vaseline) like Houstonians.”””””””
The voters of Minnesota ALWAYS voted to reject a new taxpayer funded Twins Stadium.
So the commie commisioners of Hennepin County, where I live, decided to build one anyway and only tax those of us in Hennepin County. Of course we didn’t get to vote on it or have any say in how it was done.
I expect the same thing will be given to the Vikings owner from New Jersey.
This was all stuff that could have been fixed, but it is pretty amazing to me that the junior high school I went to in the sixties (built in the forties) is still plenty good, but Texas Stadium, the King Dome, the Astrodome, and on and on, are no longer good enough after less than forty years. IIRC, the King Dome had structural problems, so it may have been a special case.
That said, a stadium can make money if done properly. IIRC, Jerry Jones underwrote 1/3 of the billion dollar plus Cowboys Stadium, has already covered his third, and the stadium is turning a profit, plus bring incredible amounts of money into Arlington.
As to the Texans, man, I'm sorry, but there was only one Houston football team:
That's not usually the way things work around here. I think I heard that the mayor of St Paul is opposed to building a Vikings stadium unless the taxpayers also build a new stadium for the St Paul Saints baseball team. I'm guessing we'll wind up building another two new stadiums, after we just got done getting two new stadiums for the Twins and Gophers football.
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