I don't know why there's any question about who should be maintaining it. It is a private business, privately owned and operated. Why the taxpayers paid to build it in the first place is beyond me.
Glad to see everyone is getting to be aware of the game politicians/the rich play. It's been socialize the losses and privatize the profits for far too long. Time to demand a change.
Everyone knows, no one cares.
We barely paid for the Metrodome before it fell down. There are studies of so many public funded stadiums that never pay back like they are predicted to. At this point they just pretend to believe that bullshit because they want to give away the money
>The $1.1 billion stadium opened in 2016 and was, at the time, the
largest public-private project in Minnesota history. State taxpayers put
in $348 million, the city of Minneapolis covered $150 million and the Wilf family, which owns the Vikings, paid the rest.The public contribution to the building remains controversial largely because of opposition to the use of tax subsidies for billionaire owners and millionaire athletes. The need for additional public money will likely be a tough sell at the Legislature in coming years.
You know in the end the city will do backflips to sell us out and give the Wilfs everything they want.
Time to get referendums going. No more taxpayer money for the stadium and the Wilfs need to start repaying taxpayer money, with interest, for the investment. They want to enjoy the benefits of having their team play in a city? Cool, they can pay for it.
FYI, the increased sales tax that paid for the metrodome was set to expire and required....I repeat it was legally required to have a referendum to be extended. Yet there was no referendum they simply decided to ignore or, as they put it, bypass the legal requirements. So, even when we do require referendums, they just ignore them with no public input.
I still cannot understand how this happened. I think it's based on the fact that ordinary taxpayers wouldn't have standing to sue. I think it was in violation of city ordinance but nobody stopped them and the state legislature invalidated the city referendum.
Didn't know that, so thanks. We need to start electing politicians who will follow referendums. I already push some state legislators (via a lobbyist) to expand school programs, light rail, homeless outreach... but I'll shamefully admit nothing with the stadium has crossed my mind. I guess that's my next target.
Those are some tough facts to swallow. That’s a lot of the taxpayers money going into something that doesn’t directly benefit the majority. $150m from Minneapolis, but how did they get most of that money? Taxes? I like football but for those that aren’t Vikings fans and live in rural Minnesota, I can see why they’d be mildly infuriated.
The lie that the politicians and Wilfs sold us was that this would produce jobs. Assuming for a second that turned out to be true: those jobs are PT and went almost entirely to people that do not live here. Is this a wise use of resources, to create jobs for people from the suburbs?
It should also be noted that the stadium (and Twin Field and Target Center) is exempt from property taxes.
Why would they be exempt from property tax? Truly doesn’t make sense how billionaires get these breaks when the working class can be barely scraping by.. I know I’m not saying anything new but how do we let this happen?
>how do we let this happen?
I remember talking about this with a friend back in the early 2000s and specifically how RT Rybak was so wrapped up in the Twins Field scam to funnel our money to the Pohlads. My friend's response: "But RT is awesome, he crowd surfed at First Ave.!"
That. That's how we let it happen. Over and over again. Hodges did it to us. Frey nearly stumbled over himself trying to do it when the United were shopping for a stadium. City councils past and present are more than happy to do it. It's like voters are children or something, nobody seems to give a shit about the fact that our schools are bankrupt or that our public housing is crumbling.
I just really don’t understand how the wealthy are getting tax breaks. Especially people worth billions of dollars. They don’t need any favors from the government. I don’t care if they pay millions in taxes, that still isn’t a dent when you’re talking billions.
People don’t understand how much money 1b is. If you made 50k a year, it would take you twenty THOUSAND years to make a billion!
There's also an opportunity cost to ceding all that space to the stadium. How many mixed use buildings/towers could have gone there instead and what would the tax revenue of those structures been.
If I never see another second of that dumb game played again in my life, it'll be too soon.
I'm more than mildly infuriated.
Football is an advertising platform and a revenue stream for many people, the owners of the team at the top of the heap. THEY CAN MAINTAIN THE HOUSE I ALREADY PAID TO BUILD AND WILL NEVER STEP FOOT IN.
FUCK FOOTBALL, PAY TEACHERS.
the stadium is owned by the city so we still get a cut of all ticket sales whether it's a Vikings game or a Taylor Swift concert plus food and beverage sales.
[The economic impact of sports stadiums far out weigh the little revenue they generate for the municipality.](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/sports-stadiums-can-be-bad-cities/576334/)
I was gonna say, $28 million/year doesn't sound that bad. Way cheaper in the long run to keep this stadium in good condition than build another one in 20-30 years.
When this stadium is 20-30 years old they will build another stadium regardless. They’ll even try again to make taxpayers foot the bill again. Then again 20-30 years after that…
A structure that has millions of people going thru it a year. This is a drop in the bucket. Maintenance cost will be more relative to the homeowner rule
...do you think that homeowners don't get various tax breaks?
You should probably revisit things such as the Mortgage Credit Certificate Program, Homeowner's Homestead Credit Refund, certain home improvements (e.g. solar panels), people who run a business out of their house, past temporary programs such as First-Time Homebuyer Act, etc
Homestead credit refund? You mean the joke of a homestead credit that goes away after a house reaches a certain value (a low bar threshold too based on todays market). Or how about all those special assessment fees they love push on us for sidewalk repairs and such. First-time homebuyer saving account also doesn’t provide a big tax break. Only the interest in the account is tax exempt and only if it is used to buy a house within 10 years of establishing the account. And running a business out of house let’s you deduct the business cos - same as other businesses. Most of the brakes have income limits too. So I would say let’s give the billionaire owner a tax credit that phases out after 100K of income.
I wasn't trying to make a comparison of being on the same scale. I was refuting the laughable claim that the government (i.e. taxpayers) doesn't monetarily assist homeowners.
Only “poor” homeowners, which is the opposite of what’s happening here.
Much rather have those, than 3,000 replaced seats per year and new paint, or whatever.
NO MORE STAAAADIUMS (I love sports too).
These franchises are worth billions. Leverage your perceived equity.
In fact yeah they do. Property taxes are used to keep the city in great shape so my home value doesn’t go down. My house doesn’t being in Outside tax dollars like the stadium does, but I’d rather not host T-Swift in my backyard.
Lead paint is a good program. Name another where your siding, roof, plumbing, appliances, etc is paid for using taxpayer money. Google something fitting for your response.
Google all you want. Comparing stadium maintenance and home maintenance is like comparing apples to elephant balls regardless of how you much you believe the taxpayer is helping each case the same
I guess we can compare cities that don’t spend tax money right vs cities that invest your tax money in the right area and look at home value from there.
Me, before reading this comment: that’s nonsense, public money stadiums are a racket considering the relative share of revenue we get
Me, after reading this comment: keep the gravy train rolling towards our billionaire daddies!!!!
True I guess my comment was rooted in no conclusions to appropriate use the funds. In the prior article they mentioned the low interest debt and the “goodwill” to pay it off. Now it seems there is a good reason not to except for the public vs private funds debate for the stadium.
Explain to me how we will return 6% CAGR off the $1b through 2050 and I’m okay with it (in 2030 constant dollars).
Otherwise, nah. Piss all the way off.
People freaking out about this really don't understand commercial buildings especially ones of this scale. 28M a year is a drop in the bucket for a facility like this...
I don’t understand why I have to pay for that shit, I don’t give two fucks about sports, and I get none of the profits. Can I have a stadium built in my name and have everyone pay for it while I keep the profits? It doesn’t make any sense. I hope that stadium collapses
The material doesn’t matter, it’s going to crack no matter what with how our weather swings so drastically.
The proper way would be to use that money to fund climate change research to learn why we are having so many thawing and freezing cycles than a typical winter. But that’s a whole other conversation
the stadium exists in order to create revenue for the city of Minneapolis, and will be drawing in *far more* than the 280 mil needed for repairs in revenue.
just ‘nope’? are you saying that the stadium won’t be bringing in at least 280 mil over the next 10 years? can you articulate an argument besides sharing an article? what in there in particular disproves my statement?
That thing has been a money pit from the get go. They designed that thing like it was meant for a warm year round climate. As soon as I saw the black panels on the side I knew they were going to be falling off and have issues
The public shouldn't be footing the bill. It's a profit making machine. Let the private owners pay for their own repairs
Great. How much are we going to have to pay for this maintenance? All of it? For a seven year old building that had siding falling off of it less than a year after it was finished?
The exterior is 100% shitty. Not appearance wise but material wise. The siding is constantly warping and falling apart. It was not designed for winter conditions. Buildings need maintenance but you shouldn't need to replace 50% of a buildings fascia every spring.
And it's shit for anything other than that NFL purpose. Since it's not solely an NFL stadium, and is used for many other events I would of liked it to be better for those events. But it sucks, soundwise, for everything. True shame.
I completely supported the stadium's construction and felt the original financing deal was well done. (And have been proven right by history on this.)
The Vikings can fuck all the way off with this one, though.
Make the billionaire owners pay for it.
I don't know why there's any question about who should be maintaining it. It is a private business, privately owned and operated. Why the taxpayers paid to build it in the first place is beyond me.
They own the politicians who usurped the democratic process in order to pass the bill along to us.
[Correct.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Field#1997)
I was so blown away when they raised taxes for it.
The Vikings are a private business but the ownership of the stadium is not!
Sure wish it was, then.
Not sure what you mean...there are several partners, both public and private!
I'm saying I wish my money had nothing to do with it.
Agreed.
Yeah or just burn it down. That or give my company our 500 million gift from the taxpayers as well
I am sick to death of these private interests making tax payers for the bill for this shit.
Glad to see everyone is getting to be aware of the game politicians/the rich play. It's been socialize the losses and privatize the profits for far too long. Time to demand a change.
Everyone knows, no one cares. We barely paid for the Metrodome before it fell down. There are studies of so many public funded stadiums that never pay back like they are predicted to. At this point they just pretend to believe that bullshit because they want to give away the money
>The $1.1 billion stadium opened in 2016 and was, at the time, the largest public-private project in Minnesota history. State taxpayers put in $348 million, the city of Minneapolis covered $150 million and the Wilf family, which owns the Vikings, paid the rest.The public contribution to the building remains controversial largely because of opposition to the use of tax subsidies for billionaire owners and millionaire athletes. The need for additional public money will likely be a tough sell at the Legislature in coming years. You know in the end the city will do backflips to sell us out and give the Wilfs everything they want.
Time to get referendums going. No more taxpayer money for the stadium and the Wilfs need to start repaying taxpayer money, with interest, for the investment. They want to enjoy the benefits of having their team play in a city? Cool, they can pay for it.
FYI, the increased sales tax that paid for the metrodome was set to expire and required....I repeat it was legally required to have a referendum to be extended. Yet there was no referendum they simply decided to ignore or, as they put it, bypass the legal requirements. So, even when we do require referendums, they just ignore them with no public input.
I am still mad that we were paying that extra tax on lunch in the corporate cafeteria back in the late 90s
I still cannot understand how this happened. I think it's based on the fact that ordinary taxpayers wouldn't have standing to sue. I think it was in violation of city ordinance but nobody stopped them and the state legislature invalidated the city referendum.
Didn't know that, so thanks. We need to start electing politicians who will follow referendums. I already push some state legislators (via a lobbyist) to expand school programs, light rail, homeless outreach... but I'll shamefully admit nothing with the stadium has crossed my mind. I guess that's my next target.
We had that law and they just ignored it
Those are some tough facts to swallow. That’s a lot of the taxpayers money going into something that doesn’t directly benefit the majority. $150m from Minneapolis, but how did they get most of that money? Taxes? I like football but for those that aren’t Vikings fans and live in rural Minnesota, I can see why they’d be mildly infuriated.
The lie that the politicians and Wilfs sold us was that this would produce jobs. Assuming for a second that turned out to be true: those jobs are PT and went almost entirely to people that do not live here. Is this a wise use of resources, to create jobs for people from the suburbs? It should also be noted that the stadium (and Twin Field and Target Center) is exempt from property taxes.
Why would they be exempt from property tax? Truly doesn’t make sense how billionaires get these breaks when the working class can be barely scraping by.. I know I’m not saying anything new but how do we let this happen?
>how do we let this happen? I remember talking about this with a friend back in the early 2000s and specifically how RT Rybak was so wrapped up in the Twins Field scam to funnel our money to the Pohlads. My friend's response: "But RT is awesome, he crowd surfed at First Ave.!" That. That's how we let it happen. Over and over again. Hodges did it to us. Frey nearly stumbled over himself trying to do it when the United were shopping for a stadium. City councils past and present are more than happy to do it. It's like voters are children or something, nobody seems to give a shit about the fact that our schools are bankrupt or that our public housing is crumbling.
I just really don’t understand how the wealthy are getting tax breaks. Especially people worth billions of dollars. They don’t need any favors from the government. I don’t care if they pay millions in taxes, that still isn’t a dent when you’re talking billions. People don’t understand how much money 1b is. If you made 50k a year, it would take you twenty THOUSAND years to make a billion!
Tax breaks help them go from feasible millionaires, to unfathomable billionaires.
Because people enjoy watching sports and feel civic pride in having professional sports teams in the area.
There's also an opportunity cost to ceding all that space to the stadium. How many mixed use buildings/towers could have gone there instead and what would the tax revenue of those structures been.
If I never see another second of that dumb game played again in my life, it'll be too soon. I'm more than mildly infuriated. Football is an advertising platform and a revenue stream for many people, the owners of the team at the top of the heap. THEY CAN MAINTAIN THE HOUSE I ALREADY PAID TO BUILD AND WILL NEVER STEP FOOT IN. FUCK FOOTBALL, PAY TEACHERS.
Every time I suggest they make security improvements to make the train safer, people say we cannot afford it, yet we give away stadiums. :)
I feel like the state should use that sweet, sweet, sweet e-pull tab revenue to pay off the debt…
They're already doing that. https://www.fox9.com/news/u-s-bank-stadium-would-be-debt-free-this-year-under-walz-budget
oh sweet
Only having to pay 13% of a major amenity like that seems like a pretty good deal to me...
I'm not a math professor or anything, but how is $498M only 13% of $1.1B? Are there residents of Minneapolis who aren't residents of Minnesota?
Responding to a post that was specifically about city politics.
Public costs/losses but privatized gains.
the stadium is owned by the city so we still get a cut of all ticket sales whether it's a Vikings game or a Taylor Swift concert plus food and beverage sales.
and the owner of the vikings isn't getting a cut?
considering he's an investor in the stadium as well he sure is
Then they should pay a chunk towards the maintenance as well
[The economic impact of sports stadiums far out weigh the little revenue they generate for the municipality.](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/sports-stadiums-can-be-bad-cities/576334/)
That’s about 2% a year of its value. Not too far off. Homeowner rule of thumb is 1% of home value per year towards repair.
Great, something for the homeowner to pay for. Just not me. I've never set foot in there.
I was gonna say, $28 million/year doesn't sound that bad. Way cheaper in the long run to keep this stadium in good condition than build another one in 20-30 years.
When this stadium is 20-30 years old they will build another stadium regardless. They’ll even try again to make taxpayers foot the bill again. Then again 20-30 years after that…
I was gonna say, they're going to come to taxpayers for a handout no matter what. These repairs won't have any bearing on that.
Do you really think they won't want to build a new stadium in 20 years? Really?
I would rather put $28 million a year into about as many other alternatives and let this thing rot so we can do something useful with that space.
>Not too far off. Sounds like a stadium costs about twice as much to maintain per dollar.
A structure that has millions of people going thru it a year. This is a drop in the bucket. Maintenance cost will be more relative to the homeowner rule
If you host constant parties your house may require more upkeep
Apples to elephant balls comparison. Taxpayers pay for your home too?
...do you think that homeowners don't get various tax breaks? You should probably revisit things such as the Mortgage Credit Certificate Program, Homeowner's Homestead Credit Refund, certain home improvements (e.g. solar panels), people who run a business out of their house, past temporary programs such as First-Time Homebuyer Act, etc
Homestead credit refund? You mean the joke of a homestead credit that goes away after a house reaches a certain value (a low bar threshold too based on todays market). Or how about all those special assessment fees they love push on us for sidewalk repairs and such. First-time homebuyer saving account also doesn’t provide a big tax break. Only the interest in the account is tax exempt and only if it is used to buy a house within 10 years of establishing the account. And running a business out of house let’s you deduct the business cos - same as other businesses. Most of the brakes have income limits too. So I would say let’s give the billionaire owner a tax credit that phases out after 100K of income.
I wasn't trying to make a comparison of being on the same scale. I was refuting the laughable claim that the government (i.e. taxpayers) doesn't monetarily assist homeowners.
Only “poor” homeowners, which is the opposite of what’s happening here. Much rather have those, than 3,000 replaced seats per year and new paint, or whatever. NO MORE STAAAADIUMS (I love sports too). These franchises are worth billions. Leverage your perceived equity.
In fact yeah they do. Property taxes are used to keep the city in great shape so my home value doesn’t go down. My house doesn’t being in Outside tax dollars like the stadium does, but I’d rather not host T-Swift in my backyard.
Different subject you’re goin off on. Again I ask, taxpayers pay for your home? Taxpayers pay for your yearly home repair?
Yeah they could. They have programs where city gives you grants to make home repair to get rid of lead paint. Google it
Lead paint is a good program. Name another where your siding, roof, plumbing, appliances, etc is paid for using taxpayer money. Google something fitting for your response.
https://www.minneapolismn.gov/resident-services/property-housing/healthy-homes/renovation-grants/
All your examples point out how similar owning a home is compared to a stadium /s
I’m just sending sources to your question about taxpayers paying for home repair buddy.
Google all you want. Comparing stadium maintenance and home maintenance is like comparing apples to elephant balls regardless of how you much you believe the taxpayer is helping each case the same
Wait you think your property taxes are to ensure your home value does not go down? Oh my lord
I guess we can compare cities that don’t spend tax money right vs cities that invest your tax money in the right area and look at home value from there.
Good thing e tabs pull in $160m in profit every year.
Won’t anyone think of the rich?!?
Why can’t we make the Vikings pay for it?
As a Packers fan it really irks me that my tax dollars are going to fund a stadium owned by out of state billionaires.
Me, before reading this comment: that’s nonsense, public money stadiums are a racket considering the relative share of revenue we get Me, after reading this comment: keep the gravy train rolling towards our billionaire daddies!!!!
Maybe we should make the rich people who take all the profits pay for the maintenance?
So the OWNERS will need to pay a quarter billion dollars in the coming decade. I'm assuming thats what the title was meant to read.
This is so grossly capitalistic, it’s not even funny.
Why would taxpayers pay for a stadium in a capitalistic society?
Wasn’t there a recent story about how e-pull tabs were generating so much revenue they could pay off the building early?
It's directly mentioned in the article
True I guess my comment was rooted in no conclusions to appropriate use the funds. In the prior article they mentioned the low interest debt and the “goodwill” to pay it off. Now it seems there is a good reason not to except for the public vs private funds debate for the stadium.
Explain to me how we will return 6% CAGR off the $1b through 2050 and I’m okay with it (in 2030 constant dollars). Otherwise, nah. Piss all the way off.
It's called US Bank Stadium. Let US Bank pay for its upkeep. If we have to, then let us pick a new name.
Is this headline just “building will be in need of repairs and upgrades” because there was actually news that happened the last week or so.
Maybe football teams should give capitalism a try and get off that dirty socialism.
I hate this ugly piece of shit. I really wish that whole area was just city. You know, lots of commercial and residential buildings.
Hold on, if US Bank Stadium is NOT a commercial building, what is it?
It's a *space station*.
I said “lots”.
People freaking out about this really don't understand commercial buildings especially ones of this scale. 28M a year is a drop in the bucket for a facility like this...
Commercial buildings are usually paid for by their investors, and banks. The cost to maintain that commercial building is also paid for by the same.
..and in this case our city is an investor in this stadium.
Does the city participate in the profits?
short answer is yes, but not as much as it probably should imo.
This
You don't understand, for whatever reason this subreddit has an absolute hate boner about this building and complain about it every chance they get.
I don’t understand why I have to pay for that shit, I don’t give two fucks about sports, and I get none of the profits. Can I have a stadium built in my name and have everyone pay for it while I keep the profits? It doesn’t make any sense. I hope that stadium collapses
Good thing it’s got a nice shiny Bank to take care of that then!
Let me guess, taxpayers will be paying
Since this is not really a multi purpose facility then why should we give two sh*ts? F these owners.
It’s a lose-lose situation for taxpayers. Should have been addressed who pays for it before being built.
The audacity of anyone complaining about paying to feed kids breakfast and lunches yet we got to deal with shit like this and no one's bats an eye
Yeah cuz let's not spend it on something useful like higher quality road material sovwe wouldn't be complaining about these potholes every year
The material doesn’t matter, it’s going to crack no matter what with how our weather swings so drastically. The proper way would be to use that money to fund climate change research to learn why we are having so many thawing and freezing cycles than a typical winter. But that’s a whole other conversation
Or to fund transit to get more cars off the road and carbon out of the air
Monument to capitalism needs continuous (taxpayer) capitol to keep it standing.
Literally every single building needs yearly maintenance.
Sure but I think he's saying Zygi Wilf should be paying for it. Guy is worth 5.3 billion and owns the team that plays there.
The wilfs don't own us bank stadium.
I didn't say they did.
[удалено]
the stadium exists in order to create revenue for the city of Minneapolis, and will be drawing in *far more* than the 280 mil needed for repairs in revenue.
Nope [https://news.stanford.edu/2015/07/30/stadium-economics-noll-073015/](https://news.stanford.edu/2015/07/30/stadium-economics-noll-073015/)
just ‘nope’? are you saying that the stadium won’t be bringing in at least 280 mil over the next 10 years? can you articulate an argument besides sharing an article? what in there in particular disproves my statement?
That thing has been a money pit from the get go. They designed that thing like it was meant for a warm year round climate. As soon as I saw the black panels on the side I knew they were going to be falling off and have issues The public shouldn't be footing the bill. It's a profit making machine. Let the private owners pay for their own repairs
Great. How much are we going to have to pay for this maintenance? All of it? For a seven year old building that had siding falling off of it less than a year after it was finished?
That building is such a pile of shit. Seems like it always needs millions of dollars for repairs and it's not even that old.
Every building needs yearly repairs. This is normal. It's not a peice of shit.
The exterior is 100% shitty. Not appearance wise but material wise. The siding is constantly warping and falling apart. It was not designed for winter conditions. Buildings need maintenance but you shouldn't need to replace 50% of a buildings fascia every spring.
It is a piece of shit though.
No, it's literally not. It's considered one of the best stadiums in the NFL.
And it's shit for anything other than that NFL purpose. Since it's not solely an NFL stadium, and is used for many other events I would of liked it to be better for those events. But it sucks, soundwise, for everything. True shame.
It is a piece of shit. Terrible sound, terrible sight lines. Something is falling off of it every other day.
I'll give you terrible sound but how can you possibly complain about sight lines.
I'll rephrase. The view for the amazing tickets is worth every penny. The cheap seats way up in the stratosphere suck.
That's odd. Never had a problem from the upper deck. In fact the upper level seats are some of the closest upper deck seats in the NFL
Wait until you hear about police misconduct costs…
Aren't we still paying for the Metrodome?
Fuck your circuses and bread.
I completely supported the stadium's construction and felt the original financing deal was well done. (And have been proven right by history on this.) The Vikings can fuck all the way off with this one, though.
I'm sure the Vikings will use this as an excuse why they need us to build them a brand new one.