Vikings Stay at Home

Minnesotans have purple and gold running through our veins. Through the good and the bad seasons we stand by our team. The Minnesota Vikings make our Sundays. When it’s not football season we’re counting down how many days until the season starts. We can rattle off facts about Adrian Peterson and Jared Allen. We will probably tell you about our season about 1998 when we should have won it all but a missed field goal shattered our dreams. We might tell you how much we don’t like the stinking Packers. At the end of the day it is easy to see that we love American football, and we love our team.

Talks of a new stadium have been threatening to take away our beloved team and give them a new home in far away states. The talks over a new stadium started nearly a decade ago. Talks intensified when the Metrodome collapsed in the winter of 2010 after a heavy snowstorm. The debate has been whether the stadium should be funded solely by the Vikings franchise or if the public should help through higher taxes and the Minnesota state lottery. My question is why wouldn’t we support our team? After all they bring lots of attention and joy to Minnesota. Los Angeles already took one of our teams, why would we want them to come in and take another?

An agreement was made that the state of Minnesota will contribute $498 million to the project. The Vikings franchise will cover the rest. Dayton said he could not release where the VIkings funding was coming from:

No, the private participation is distinctly different from the public, where there should be complete transparency. The (public stadium) authority should have a right to make sure that they have the financial wherewithal, but where their financing comes from really is their business.

            This Monday May 14^th Governor Mark Dayton signed the $975 million stadium bill. It was a great day for Vikings fan across the world. The Vikings nation let out a sigh of relief knowing our team isn’t going anywhere. Which of course was followed by a “SKOL VIKINGS!” The stadium is scheduled to be completed in 2016.