Category Archives: Minnesota Vikings

Taxpayer-Subsidized Vikings Stadium Continues to Deliver Huge Returns for Billionaire Wilfs

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Eight years ago, the owners of the Minnesota Vikings, Zygy and Mark Wilf, paid about 21 percent of the cost of the new Vikings’ stadium.  At the time, an obscure socialist blogger described what we knew about the sweetheart cost-sharing arrangement:

Vikings PR people like to tell Minnesotans that the team’s owner, billionaire Zygi Wilf, is paying about 60 percent of the ever-growing $1.2 billion stadium cost.  

The truth, as Star Tribune/1500ESPN columnist Patrick Reusse pointed out back in May 2012, is that something like $450 million of the Wilf’s share will be paid by people other than the Wilfs. For instance, season ticket holders will be making exorbitant seat license payments to the Wilfs, the National Football League will be paying a subsidized “loan” to the Wilfs, and U.S. Bank will be making naming rights payments to the Wilfs.  All of this will offset the Wilf’s stadium costs by about $450 million

Taking all of that into consideration, Mr. Wilf looks to be shelling out more in the neighborhood of $250 million of his own money, or 21% of the cost of the $1.2 billion total, not the 60 percent the Vikings claim.  

It’s difficult for an outsider to come up with precise numbers, but that seems like a pretty fair, pardon the pun, ballpark estimate.

Taxpayers often subsidize infrastructure — roads, bridges, ports, rural broadband, community centers, etc. — that private companies can’t or won’t build on their own.  That makes good sense.

But should an NFL stadium be considered one of those things? Did the Wilfs really have so little to gain financially from a new stadium that they needed massive taxpayer subsidies? 

Vikings billionaire owner Zygi Wilf surveying the taxpayer gift that keeps on giving.
(Photo credit: Star Tribune)

Every year, we’re learning a bit more about just how much the Wilfs gained from this new stadium.  In 2005, the Wilfs paid about $600 million for the Vikings.  The last time Forbes did its estimates, the Vikings were thought to be worth $3.93 billion. 

To be sure, not all of this gain in team value is due to the stadium. But the stadium is certainly a substantial driver of increased valuation, and it’s never been more clear that NFL owners have more than enough financial wherewithal to fund their own revenue-generating assets.

By the way, the Wilfs’ money-making machine is just getting warmed up.  Last weekend, St. Paul Pioneer Press sports Columnist Charlie Walters speculated that this year Forbes will say the Vikings are valued at around $4.5 billion, which is about 7.5 times more than what the Wilfs originally paid. 

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Legislature is struggling to come up with ways to fund basic life necessities for struggling low-income families, such as housing, nutrition, medical leave, child care, mental health care, health care, nursing home care, roads, and bridges.

So, yeah, I haven’t really gotten over it yet.

Did the Vikings and NFL Just Blacklist Another Left-Leaning Player?

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I’m not a great NFL offensive line talent evaluator, but I’m told a player named J.C. Tretter has had himself a fine eight-year career as an NFL center. 

At the same time, the center position just happens to be a chronic weakness of the Vikings.  First round draft choice Garrett Bradbury has been a huge disappointment, which particularly limits their passing game and endangers their skittish franchise quarterback. The Vikings don’t appear to have a good Plan B to replace Bradbury.  

The good news, it seemed, was that Mr. Tretter had interest in coming to Minnesota. But alas, according to Sports Illustrated (SI) the interest was not reciprocated by the Vikings’ front office:

The former Browns center, one of the best, most durable players at his position over the past five seasons, had interest in playing football in 2022. After being released by Cleveland in the spring, Tretter and his representation looked around to see if they could find him a new team in free agency. He told Sports Illustrated’s Alex Prewitt that his list of ideal destinations included the Panthers, Cowboys, and Vikings. Tretter cheered for the Vikings as a kid and felt that playing for them would “put a bow on (his) childhood.”

Despite having a major need at center due to Garrett Bradbury’s struggles, the Vikings apparently never returned his call. They declined to comment for the SI story. Minnesota wasn’t the only one, though; per the story, “none of the seven teams that his camp contacted reciprocated his interest.”

So Tretter, feeling at peace with his career, announced his retirement on Thursday.


Now, I’m certainly open to the possibility that Tretter was too beat up to play any more, though he denies that. But why wouldn’t the Vikings, or any other NFL team, at least conduct a physical and do some diagnostic scans? That refusal to even investigate his health just doesn’t pass the smell test.

I’m also open to the possibility that Tretter, at the ripe old age of 31, had no more gas in the tank. But offensive lineman frequently pay well into their thirties, and just last year Tretter still had plenty of game left in him, according to statistics compiled by Cleveland Browns blogger Barry Shuck.

With the 2021 season, Tretter played 1,038 snaps and allowed only one sack. His Pro Football Focus grade this past year was 78.7 and was ranked the #6 center out of 39 candidates.

So what could have caused an accomplished veteran like Tretter to get the cold shoulder from the Vikings and every other NFL team’s front office?  Some, such as Tretter’s former teammate Joel Bitonio, make a very convincing case that Tretter, an Ivy League (Cornell) graduate, has been effectively blackballed by the NFL because he was an outspoken two-term President of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), the labor union that represents players in negotiations with the NFL’s billionaire owners on issues such as pay, benefits, workplace conditions, racial equity, health, and safety.

“When you have a guy that’s top-five, top-10 at center in the league and he’s not on a roster, you know, and he’s the NFLPA president and maybe some of the owners don’t appreciate what he brings to the table on certain topics when he’s trying to protect player safety and things of that nature, it seems a little suspicious to me,” Bitonio said, via Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “But, again, I don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors. I don’t know what his conversations have been with teams and stuff, but just from an outside perspective usually players that are close to the top of their game get picked up. Teams want to win in this league. So it’s an interesting topic, for sure.”

Mike Florio, an attorney and NFL analyst for NBC, profootballtalk.com, and KFAN radio in Minnesota, agrees that it is very possible:

Would it be crazy to think that owners are shying away from Tretter because he has become an agitator to the oligarchs? Nope. That’s another reason why high-profile (and highly-compensated) quarterbacks should be more involved in union leadership. They’re far less likely to be blackballed, and they’re far more likely to take command of the rank and file if/when a line must be drawn in the sand — even if it means a work stoppage.

For now, it makes sense to pay attention to what happens with Tretter. If the goal is to keep him out of the league because he helps run the union, ignoring it makes it easier for the owners to pull it off.

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Keep in mind, the NFL and the Vikings have a history here.  As I have written on this blog, there are strong arguments that both the Vikings and the NFL engaged in blacklisting others — racial equity champion quarterback Colin Kaepernick and gay rights champion punter Chris Kluwe — who dared to speak their minds about what the NFL considers to be “political issues.”

Interestingly, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had no concerns with former Vikings center Matt Birk, who was an outspoken advocate of banning abortion long before he started his gaffe-filled run in Minnesota politics. Birk’s position could have been considered by the NFL to be “controversial,” given that surveys show that two-thirds of the nation opposes banning abortion.

But the NFL not only didn’t blacklist Birk, it hired him as a top executive, Director of Player Development, after his playing career was done. The NFL owners’ political leanings are in full view here.

Again, keep in mind, when the analytics publication Pro Football Focus (PFF) ranked the top half of centers in the NFL, they put Tretter near the very top, at number five. PFF didn’t even list the Vikings current starter Garrett Bradbury in the top half of options.

Yet Bradbury, who Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell continues to question, will be the Vikings starter again this year, and Tretter apparently can’t even get his phone call returned by the Vikings front office.

The Vikings’ billionaire owners Mark and Zygi Wilf love to assure long-suffering fans that they will do whatever it takes to bring a Super Bowl Championship to Minnesota, the state that paid half a billion dollars for a sports palace that has caused the value of the Wilf’s NFL franchise to skyrocket by over a billion dollars.

Unless, apparently, that means employing players who advocate for racial, gay, and worker rights.

Unvaccinated Athletes Are “Team First?”

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Two of the things that are most celebrated about our elite athlete heroes are “always puts team first” and “always respects the fans.”  How often have we heard such gushing clichés in sports journalism and chatter?  It seems nothing is more celebrated and revered than proving loyalty to fans and team.

Yet when it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations, a small but significant group of NFL players are refusing to say whether they’re vaccinated, which presumably means that most of them are not vaccinated. 

Three of the most important members of the Minnesota Vikings fall into that category — quarterback Kirk Cousins, wide receiver Adam Thielen, and safety Harrison Smith.  These are not just any players.  This is the Vikings’ highest paid player, their beloved over-achieving homie, and their longest serving player who has been selected for five Pro Bowls.

Last September, when asked about COVID-19, Cousins was cavalier about a disease that has killed an estimated 3 million people worldwide.  Here is what Cousins told podcaster Kyle Brandt, when Brandt asked an impressively difficult to evade question: “On a spectrum of one – masks are stupid and you’re all a bunch of lemmings – and ten is ‘I’m not leaving my master bathroom for the next 10 years. Where do you land?”

“I’m not going to call anybody stupid for the trouble it could get me in,” Cousins responded. “But I’m about a .0001.”


In the local sports news coverage and talk I’m consuming, I’m mostly hearing defense of athletes making the decision to forgo getting vaccinations, which have proven remarkably safe and effective after over 3 billion doses worldwide. I’m paraphrasing, but I’m hearing a lot of this kind of thing from fans, analysts, and journalists about unvaccinated NFL players, even from people who have vaccinated themselves:

“It’s their body, so how dare anyone question their personal decision!” 

“They’re young and in prime condition, so I competely understand why they wouldn’t bother.” 

“How can the NFL suits punish them for their personal or religious decision?” 

Explanatory Note: The alleged “punishment” is that the NFL has some pretty basic public health restrictions for unvaccinated players.  As I understand them, they can’t eat with the rest of the vaccinated team, don’t have as much freedom to be in crowds when traveling, need to wear masks in many situations, and can be fined for violating the public health protocols.  Quite responsibly, the NFL is trying to limit spread from these unvaccinated players, but many players and fans view this as punishment.


Team First?

But hold on, what about that all-important “always puts team first” standard that we constantly spotlight when it comes to our pedestaled athletes? 

To be clear, putting yourself at risk of getting sick or quarantined means putting yourself at risk of not being there for your team. Would we be forgiving if an athlete insisted on engaging in other types o risky behaviors that threatens their ability to be present for their teammates at practices or game day, such as bull-riding, motor cross racing, free solo climbing, or chronic binge-drinking?

And remember, this is an infectious disease that often spreads asymptomatically, unbeknownst to the spreader.  So when tough talkin’ Kirk “If I Die, I Die” Cousins risks infection, remember that means that he also is selfishly putting unvaccinated teammates at significant risk.  If any of those players miss a game or games, or get harmed, it will very likely hurt their team. If all three of them miss games, the problem for the team could quickly become catastrophic.

So much for “team first.”



Respecting The Fans?

And then what about that “always respects the fans” standard.  Even if the athlete is ignorant enough to feel safe being unvaccinated, what about the tens of thousands of adoring fans per week with whom they are sharing the buildings?  You know, the elated fans, many with their risk-regulating amygdala pickled, desperate to get as close to them as possible? You know, the people who make your extravagant salary and lifestyle possible? Is knowingly putting them at risk of being maimed or killed by the deadliest virus in a century really “respecting the fans?”

“Yeah, but players shouldn’t be forced to be vaccinated,” say the athlete worshipping journalists, analysts, and fans.  I hear this one a lot. That goes without saying. It’s a “straw man,” an extreme argument that virtually no one is making, but is trotted out because it’s easy and popular to knock down.

But I’m not talking about mandating vaccinations, and neither is anybody at the NFL or Centers for Disease Control (CDC). I’m just talking about doing the right thing for yourself, your loved ones, your community, your team, and your fans.

I don’t care how well they play this year, I don’t want to hear any more of the cliches about these unvaccinated athletes always putting their team and fans first.  Because right now, we’re seeing what they’re really made of.  Their selfish actions are speaking much more loudly than their sports cliché words.

Colin Kaepernick, the Vikings and the NFL’s Political Blacklisting

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The NFL continually promotes itself as a meritocracy, a place where the most meritorious players make the teams and racial, ethnicity and socioeconomic status are irrelevant. They say it’s about performance, period.

But the glaring exception to the meritocracy rule is political speech.

Exercising free speech rights does seem to keep talented players off the field.  For instance, God help you if you are a player who speaks out in defense of human rights for gay people. Just ask former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. After he advocated for gay rights, Kluwe was harassed by his coach and ultimately his NFL career ended abruptly, despite the fact that analysts say Kluwe’s statistics were some of the best in the Vikings 56-year history.

Then there’s Colin Kaepernick, who silently protested racial inequality and police brutality by taking a knee during the national anthem.  After exercising his free speech rights, Kaepernick also couldn’t get a job, despite having a better on-field performance record than half of the backup quarterbacks on NFL rosters, according to a Washington Post review.  An excerpt from the Post’s 2016  analysis:

If you look at Total Quarterback Rating (Total QBR), Kaepernick would be an upgrade over at least half of the backups in the league today, not including rookies. That list is 18 players long and includes Landry Jones, Case Keenum, Matt Barkley, Nick Foles, Scott Tolzien, Geno Smith, Paxton Lynch, Drew Stanton, Bryce Petty, Cardale Jones, Matt Schaub, Derek Anderson, Connor Cook, Brett Hundley, Ryan Mallett, Sean Mannion and Kellen Clemens. Based on down, distance and field position, he helped the 49ers score 30 more points than expected last season through his passing prowess, per ESPN Stats and Information. His 0.09 points added per pass attempt in 2016 is greater than 15 of the backup quarterbacks available or currently on a depth chart.

Kaepernick (55.2) ranked 23rd out of 30 qualified passers in 2016 QBR, placing him ahead of starters like Ryan Tannehill, Cam Newton, Carson Wentz, Eli Manning, Blake Bortles, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Case Keenum.

No one is suggesting he should be a starter in the NFL, but the numbers clearly show he would be a smart addition as a backup quarterback.

Despite these facts, this offseason the Minnesota Vikings avoided Kaepernick like he was Spergon Wynn. The same Vikings team that ran off the politically minded Kluwe wouldn’t even consider signing the politically minded Kaepernick, despite his solid body of work on the field, and a presumably modest salary requirements.

Instead, the Vikings signed Case Keenum, who is statistically inferior to Kaepernick, and Minnesota Gopher alum Mitch Leidner, a below average college player and undrafted rookie. While the hometown boy Leidner probably won’t make the team, he was given a chance. Meanwhile, a completely untested and lackluster prospect, Taylor Heinicke, will likely be named the other backup if the Vikings keep three quarterbacks.  So, Keenum, Heinike, and Leidner over Kaepernick, and 31 other teams also took a pass.  Meritocracy my ass.

The NFL is very patriotic, so it needs to save us from the Kluwes and Kaepernicks.  By the way, some of its patriotism is a profit center.   Until recently, the Pentagon was secretly paying NFL teams as much as a million dollars per game in tax dollars to hold a moment of silence to honor veterans.  What fans assumed to be the hometown team’s heartfelt gesture was actually paid patriotism — a big buck commercial to lure local kids into the military.

There is nothing more American than exercising your free speech rights to promote equality, particularly when you know it will come at a huge financial cost.  What Kluwe and Kaepernick have been doing to improve their country is far more patriotic than the NFL’s hollow Pentagon-financed pay-for-patriotism stagecraft.

It’s Good To Be Zygi

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In 2011, taxpayers gave billionaire Minnesota Vikings owner Zygmunt “Zygi” Wilf quite a gift, an even bigger gift than some realized at the time.

Taxpayers invested about half a billion public dollars to help Mr. Wilf construct his $1.1 billion business headquarters, U.S. Bank Stadium.  The State contributed $348 million, and another $150 million came from a Minneapolis hospitality tax. (While it’s often reported that Mr. Wilf paid the remainder, much of the remainder was paid by private interests — the NFL, personal seat license holders, and U.S. Bank.)

This was an extraordinary taxpayer subsidy for any business owner, much less a controversial one worth $5.3 billion who has been found liable by a New Jersey court for breaking civil state racketeering laws.

But Mr. Wilf’s gift from taxpayers went well beyond that $498 million.  State leaders also allowed the billionaire to keep 100% of the increased business value that he has realized since his publicly subsidized business headquarters was authorized.  It turns out, that’s quite an increase.  According to a Forbes magazine estimate, in 2011, the year before the approval of the stadium, Wilf’s business was worth $796 million.  The most recent Forbes estimate puts the value at a breathtaking $2.2 billion.

That’s a tidy little increase of about $1.4 billion, with a “b,” over just six years.

Not all of that $1.4 billion gain is due to the new $1.1 billion stadium and its income-generating capacity, but much of it is.  It’s now clear that if the billionaire owner had financed his business’s building the old fashioned way — without taxpayers footing half of his bill — he would easily have recouped the full amount of his business investment, and then some.  Clearly, Mr. Wilf did not need us.

In 2011, many predicted that Minnesota taxpayers would be making a very rich man substantially richer.  But it’s still breathtaking to watch the money flooding in.  Skol Zygi.

Every Vikings Ticket Carries a $72 Taxpayer Subsidy?

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Cursor_and_vikings_suites_-_Google_SearchAre Minnesota Vikings season ticket holders effectively government-dependent welfare queens?  After all, a state legislator’s analysis finds that every Vikings ticket benefits from a taxpayer subsidy of over $72.

If that analysis is correct, it would mean that over the next decade a season ticket-holding family of four will be benefiting from about $29,000 in subsidies from Minnesota taxpayers.  Over the three-decade life of the stadium, the 24 corporate benefactors sipping chablis in the Valhalla Suite will be benefiting from a government subsidy of about $521,000.

And we’re worried about poverty-stricken families on Food Stamps? 

Those figures are based on an analysis done by Minnesota State Senator John Marty (DFL-Roseville).  Senator Marty calculates that the entire taxpayer burden for subsidizing our new People’s/U.S. Bank Stadium is over $1.4 billion.  I’m not a public finance expert, but Senator Marty is a bright guy with access to public finance experts, and he seems to have done a lot of homework to develop this estimate.  He shows his homework in the spreadsheet provided below.

For purposes of the estimate, Senator Marty assumes that the Vikings will sell about 19.5 million tickets over the next 30 years.  While other non-Vikings events will also be held in the facility, Marty’s analysis only looks at Vikings tickets.

From there, it’s a simple calculation: $1.4 billion in subsidy÷19.5 million tickets=$72 subsidy per ticket.

Cursor_and_Subsidy_per_ticket_-_calculated_May_15_2012_pdf__page_2_of_2_Critics may quibble with the specifics of the Marty analysis.  But specifics aside, the undeniable fact remains that Minnesota taxpayers are on the hook for an enormous subsidy that looks to be much larger than the $498 million figure typically quoted during legislative debates.

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Is Zygi Claus As Generous As Local News Coverage Makes Him Out To Be?

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zygi_wilf_shovel

Billionaire Vikings owner Zygi Wilf is Minnesota’s Santa Claus. That’s essentially the message local news and sports coverage has hammered into Minnesotans’ heads over the last couple of years.

There has been a steady string of positive headlines promoting the Wilf’s stadium-related generosity: Twin Cities Business magazine: “Wilfs Commit $19.5 million More to New Vikings Stadium.”  Minnesota Public Radio:  “Vikings add 19.7 million to stadium contribution.”  WCCO-TV:  “Vikings, Wilfs To Commit to Additional $14M To New Stadium.”  The Saint Paul Pioneer Press:  “Vikings’ Zygi Wilf to increase stadium contribution.”  The Star Tribune:  “Vikings pony up $49 million for stadium accessories.”

Legendary Star Tribune sports columnist Sid Hartman regularly preaches about how fortunate we Minnesotans are to have the Wilfs lavishing us with additional stadium-related toys out of the goodness of their hearts.  For instance, under the homer headline “Vikings Stadium Will Be Spectacular,” a typical Hartman column tells Minnesotans to “take your hat off to the Wilf family,” and then essentially turns his column over to Vikings executive Lester Bagley’s pro-Wilf spin:

“The Wilf family has put in an additional $95 million since the bill passed the Legislature, because a lot of teams and communities get to this point and they start to cut things [and] we don’t want to cut things. We want to add things and make sure this is the best stadium in the league.

The Legislature had us agree to $477 million in team/private dollars and since the bill passed, on top of that $477 million, the Wilfs have agreed to contribute an additional $95 million and counting.”

In addition to his newspaper columns, Mr. Hartman even more frequently carries the same kind of Wilf cheerleading to the powerful radio airwaves of WCCO-AM.  KFAN-FM and 1500-ESPN also do their fair share to promote Zygi’s stadium contributions to their listeners.

The cumulative effect of all of this has been to paint a portrait of jolly old Zygi Claus and Lester the Elf continually delivering millions of dollars of new stadium toys to Minnesota’s football loving girls and boys.

I don’t blame reporters for those headlines.  The budget increases happened, and reporters need to cover developments like that. Moreover, I’m glad that the Wilfs are paying the extra costs.  It’s better than the alternative.

But as Mr. Wilf prepares to cut the ribbon for his new business asset later this summer, and have even more adoration heaped upon him by Mr. Hartman and others, it’s important to look at the broader context.

Others Paying “Owner’s Share”

Remember that the owner has had lots of help paying the so-called “owner’s share” of the stadium. The Vikings are getting hundreds of millions of dollars from a number of outside sources, such as a NFL loan program, seat licenses paid by fans, and enormous naming rights payments coming from U.S. Bank customers.  As Minnesota Public Radio reported:

“If the team gets the NFL loan, sells naming rights and charges for personal seat licenses according to these estimates, it would have about $115 million of the original $427 million pledge yet to pay. Compared to the upfront price tag on the stadium of $975 million, the amount left is about 12 cents on the dollar.”

Note that this April 2012 MPR analysis was done prior to the Wilf’s increasing their stadium contributions by an additional $95 million or so.   It also was done without solid numbers related to these three types of funding sources.

But details aside, the larger point remains:  What the owner is actually paying is only a small fraction of what is described in news coverage as “the owner’s share.”

Star Tribune sports columnist and 1500ESPN radio analyst Patrick Reusse also wrote an excellent 1500ESPN blog post asserting that about $450 million of the Wilf’s share will be paid by someone other than the Wilfs.  Reusse’s analysis was titled “Quite a Bonanza For Our Stadium Martyr.”  However, the radio station appears to have removed the post.

“Worst Deal From Sports Team”

Mr. Wilf is the generous one?  Really?  Minnesota taxpayers are bearing a heavy burden for the stadium, because the Wilfs insisted on it, during a decade worth of legislative warfare.  In naming the Twin Cities one of “5 cities getting the worst deals from sports teams,” MarketWatch asks:

“How do you get taxpayers to chip in $500 million on a more than $1 billion stadium when only one city, Indianapolis ($620 million), has ever paid that much?”

MarketWatch also notes that Minneapolitans “will end up paying $678 million over its 30-year payment plan once interest, operations and construction costs are factored in.”

I’m not informed enough about every stadium deal in the nation to say whether MarketWatch is correct that Minnesotans got one of the worst deals ever.  But it is important to understand that Minnesota taxpayers are being extraordinarily generous to the Vikings owners, not the other way around.

Wilfs Are Takers, Not Givers

By any reasonable analysis, the Wilfs are the big takers in this scenario.  They are not, as much of the news and sports coverage has implied or asserted, the big givers.  After all, this luxurious new taxpayer subsidized stadium won’t make taxpayers’ wealthier, but it is already making the Wilf’s much wealthier.

Forbes magazine estimates that the Vikings franchise, which reportedly was purchased by the Wilfs for about $600 million in 2005, was worth $796 million in 2011, the year before the stadium subsidy was approved.  By 2015, after the taxpayer subsidy was approved by the Minnesota Legislature and Governor Dayton, Forbes estimates the value of the Wilf’s business had spiked to $1.59 billion.

That’s a remarkably quick appreciation going to Zygi Claus’s bottom line in the post-stadium approval era.  Add what the owners will be pocketing due to large increases in stadium-related revenue in the coming years, and it’s pretty clear that the Wilfs are making out like bandits.

Precise analysis is pretty much impossible on this subject, because executives are not nearly as forthcoming about details related to the loan, seat licenses and naming rights as they are about contributions. However, this is roughly what it looks like to me:  Zygi Claus is investing something in the neighborhood of $200 million to see his business valuation increase by at least $800 million, and probably quite a bit more over time.

None of this is illegal, or all that unusual.  But it also is not Santa Claus.

My Vikings Legacy Brick

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Vikings_brickMy kids are all too aware of my unhealthy obsession with the Minnesota Vikings, so for Christmas they splurged and got me a “Legacy Brick”, which will be part of the plaza on the front porch of the Vikings new stadium.

I’m embarrassed to admit how much this gift pleased me.  After all, I’m a grown ass man. I understand this is just an appeal to vanity and hero worship as a way to have rubes like me finance an asset that will make billionaire Vikings owner Zygi Wilf wealthier.

But come on, it’s granite, with my name on it, in the Vikings’ front yard! How AWESOME is that? The Vikings and I were both born in 1961, and I and other family members, living and dead, have closely followed them for as long as I can remember.  This is a chance to memorialize our collective misery.

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Better yet for a guy who likes to write, the accompanying brochure pledges that “your personal message” will be engraved on the brick. Hot damn, a blank slate!

As a long-suffering fan of the historically snake bit franchise, my mind immediately went to trolling. That is, I considered capturing a grievances in granite.

For instance, in homage to the embattled offensive tackle Matt Kalil, who fans particularly love to hate when the offense is sputtering, I considered a paver inscribed, “Walk all over me, just like Kalil gets walked on.” Petty, but gratifying.  Similarly, to celebrate the storied career of the plodding tight end Jimmy Kleinsasser, I thought about submitting “This brick is faster than Kleinsasser.”  Or to honor running back Adrian Peterson (AP), who has 33 maddening fumbles as part of his Hall of Fame career, I was tempted to go with “Me: One on the ground for my team. AP: 33.”

And then there are the numerous scandals that could have been cathartic fodder for brick copy.  The Love Boat sex scandal.  The Adrian Peterson child abuse.  The endless player prosecutions.  The arrogance and immaturity of Randy Moss.

I also considered commemorating my own lameness as a fan. I waxed nostalgic about a frigid day in December 1980 when a boyhood friend and I left a game at Met Stadium early. As it turns out, we missed seeing the greatest comeback victory in Vikings history against the Cleveland Browns, only to be scolded by a highway patrolman during our solemn drive back to South Dakota. The paver could mock us, just as the officer did that day: “You boys left early, huh? 12-14-80.”

That friend also suggested a granite haiku that captured the epic tragedy that is Vikings fandom:

Left early against Browns,
Take a knee, wide left Atlanta.
Life of a Vikings fan.

I don’t mind telling you, that one made me misty.

Political animal that I am, I also really would have loved to make a political statement, such as “Bought this brick for a billionaire.” That would really stick it to The Man, and bring some progressive awareness to the old town square!  It also would effectively clarify that “yeah, I’m a chump alright, but I’m a politically savvy chump!”

Naturally, I considered Packer hating: “Packers fans got 13 championships. I got this brick.” I also wondered if I could get this past the censors “Puck the Fackers.” See what I did there?

But alas, after all of my fantasizing, I finally read the fine print on the Vikings’ website:

Discriminatory, political, offensive, or inappropriate messages as determined by the Minnesota Vikings and MSFA will be declined. References to other NFL teams will not be accepted. The Minnesota Vikings and MSFA reserve the right to approve all brick inscriptions. Inscriptions that do not conform to these inscription guidelines or that are deemed unsuitable will be declined and will require a new inscription to be submitted.

My creative visions all were ruined by the Vikings. Between this censorship and a rather severe character restriction, my options were very limited. So, I played it straight:

Skol or uffda,
bleeding purple
since 1961.
Loveland Family

Booooooring. Schmaltzy!

Hey, but it’s my name, in granite, in the Vikings’ front yard!

Who Negotiated That Stadium Deal Again?

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Vikings PR people like to tell Minnesotans that the team’s owner, billionaire Zygi Wilf, is paying about 60 percent of the ever-growing $1.2 billion stadium cost.  The truth, as Star Tribune/1500ESPN columnist Patrick Reusse pointed out back in May 2012, is that something like $450 million of the Wilf’s share will be paid by people other than the Wilfs. For instance, season ticket holders will be making exorbitant seat license payments to the Wilfs, the National Football League will be paying a subsidized “loan” to the Wilfs, and U.S. Bank will be making naming rights payments to the Wilfs.  All of this will offset the Wilf’s stadium costs by about $450 million.

Taking all of that into consideration, Mr. Wilf looks to be shelling out more in the neighborhood of  $250 million of his own money, or 21% of the cost of the $1.2 billion total, not the 60 percent the Vikings claim.  It’s difficult for an outsider to come up with precise numbers, but that seems like a pretty fair, pardon the pun, ballpark estimate.

Meanwhile, state and local taxpayers are paying about half a billion dollars for the Vikings’ stadium, or about 40 percent percent of the stadium cost.  In other words, taxpayers are paying significantly more than the billionaire owner.

Despite being the majority investor, taxpayers have no say in the name of the stadium, and will be getting 0 percent of the estimated $10 million per year of corporate naming rights payments that U.S. Bank will be paying over the next two decades.  The billionaire Wilfs will be getting 100 percent of the $220 million in naming rights payments.

Formerly_People_s_Stadium

mao_tiananmen_squareIt’s bad enough that U.S. Bank looks to be getting more corporate visibility than Chairman Mao demanded for himself at Tiananmen Square. To add insult to aesthetic injury, taxpayers aren’t getting a single penny for putting up with U.S. Bank’s excessive corporate graffiti.

And so ladies and gentlemen, I give you U.S. Bank Stadium, formerly billed to skeptical taxpayers as the “people’s stadium.”  State leaders should be doing some retrospective soul-searching about how they got so thoroughly fleeced by the Wilfs on this deal.

If Vikings Pick Punters “Strictly Based On Performance,” They Should Bring Back Kluwe

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kluwe_censoredIn the wake of Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe’s advocacy of gay marriage, Vikings Special Teams Coach Mike Priefer publicly said he was tired of Kluwe-related distractions, privately told Kluwe that the gays should be rounded up and nuked, and fired Kluwe and replaced him with an untested rookie.

Despite the timing of all these events, the Vikings vehemently denied that Kluwe was fired due to his activism. The Vikings released a statement assuring Minnesotans:

“Chris was released strictly based on his football performance.”

There you have it.  Not salary. Not age (he was 31, relatively young for punters). Not activism. “Strictly based his football performance.” The Vikings assured us that they run a pure meritocracy, and Kluwe’s performance just wasn’t up to snuff.

But that was always a head-scratcher. After all, the statistics show that Kluwe was the best punter in Vikings history. For instance, Kluwe is at the top of the heap in Vikings history in career punt average, at 44.4 yards per punt. Of course, punting is also about placement, but Kluwe is also number one in Vikings history in punts placed inside the 20-yard line.

Despite Kluwe’s impressive performace-based records, Kluwe was fired and replaced by Jeff Locke, a rookie who was completely untested in the NFL. Priefer assured Vikings fans that Locke had bested Kluwe during a brief closed-door punt-off at the Vikings’ practice facility. So, while Kluwe was statistically the best punter in Vikings history, Locke was, Coach Priefer assured us, going to be even better. Kluwe wasn’t even get a chance to compete for his job at training camp.  One closed-door punt-off supervised by Priefer, and the most accomplished punter in Vikings history was shown the door.

How is that working out for Priefer and the Vikings? Kluwe’s replacement Jeff Locke was named by the wonky analysts at Pro Football Focus as the single worst punter in the NFL. Bleacher Report elaborates:

While Kluwe may have been outspoken and a hassle at times, he certainly was able to get the job done from a punting perspective, something Locke has not been able to do through nearly two seasons.

According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Locke has received a combined rating of negative-20.8 since he entered the league in 2013, which is far and away the worst rating of any punter during this time fame. His negative-10.2 rating this season ranks dead last among 33 analyzed punters.

If it’s really true that Kluwe was replaced by Locke “strictly based on his football performance,” maybe Coach Priefer, or Priefer’s replacement, should be bringing back Kluwe for the 2015 season.

– Loveland

Note:  This post was also published by MinnPost.