NFL forcing Vikings stadium deal in Minnesota, or L.A.
WEDNESDAY, 19 OCTOBER 2011 12:37
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/nfl-forcing-vikings-stadium-deal-in-minnesota-or-la
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is nothing lovable about the National Football League. It is just a business, a cold, austere organization that somehow has captured the attention of Americans with smoke, mirrors and on field action every minute and a half or so. The television production aspect of the National Football League is impressive, the pre-game shows loaded with laughter and exciting video, halftime shows loaded with laughter and exciting video, post game shows loaded with laughter and exciting video. The hype of games just played with analysis of play after play after play in slow motion with circles around the point of attack and the buildup of the next game.
The radio talk show hosts chirping about what might have been and what could be and the football scribes being stenographers with the words of wisdom coming from some coach or some general manager or some player as if it was inscribed on a tablet that just came down the mountain and had life changing importance.
The package is sold to the consumer who the NFL hopes devours all the information and sits in front of a TV on Sunday in a coma-like trance. The in-stadium production includes dancing girls and rock 'em-sock 'em videos complete with music for people who can afford the pricey tickets.
But the real NFL is a cold, calculating business and New Jersey's Zygi Wilf will be front and center as example No. 1 in the next month. Wilf's Minnesota Vikings on the field team is not very good this year. But that doesn't matter much. Wilf is headed to the "big game" on November 21 complete with the NFL's backing.
The "big game" will take place in the legislative chambers in St. Paul as Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has called a three-day session of the state legislature to once and for all find a funding mechanism so Wilf can secure a new stadium for his Vikings near the capital in Arden Hills, Minn.
On Tuesday the NFL told Dayton and the legislators to get it done or else Wilf may have to seek a solution to his woes outside the state. The estimated cost for the Arden Hills facility is $1.1 billion. Wilf and his Vikings partners apparently will put up $407 million for the construction and the NFL could lend Wilf another $150 million. The state and Ramsey County would raise the rest through a variety of options including proceeds from a "racino", a combination of a horse racing track with a casino.
The "or else" part could be that Wilf might move the franchise to Los Angeles if the legislators don't heed to the NFL's wishes.
People who put up money to support any sports team are always played for suckers.
In Minneapolis-St. Paul, taxpayers since 1956 have paid for two multi-purpose stadiums for baseball and football, a baseball stadium, a college football stadium, an indoor arena in Bloomington which no longer exists as the original multi-purpose stadium and the arena were bulldozed for a mall and two indoor arenas in St. Paul. The city of Minneapolis now owns a privately built arena for the NBA Timberwolves.
Taxpayers have put up more than a billion dollars for privately owned businesses and probably have not gotten back much on the investment except two Minnesota Twins World Series titles.
The area lost a hockey team (the NHL's North Stars) and a basketball team (the Lakers). The baseball team almost moved to the Tampa area and Greensboro, NC. The owners of the football team looked at moving to LA in the late 1970s.
Los Angeles is looming in the background if the legislatures don't say yes to the NFL.
But the NFL is not happy with the present Los Angeles option. Phil Anschutz's AEG unit is proposing to build a stadium allegedly with AEG backed funding but the deal doesn't make any sense for an NFL owner who would be a renter and not get the revenue streams from luxury boxes and club seats that municipalities or taxpayers can offer. AEG has to pay off the debt and while the NFL has not blasted Ed Roski's City of Industry stadium proposal east of LA, the same problem exists in that plan.
The NFL just a couple months ago locked out the league's employees---the players---because they wanted to control players’ salaries. Part of the lockout strategy was to get money from the players and use it to fund stadiums. The NFL told the San Francisco 49ers ownership not to seek funding from banks for a proposed Santa Clara, CA stadium until the lockout was over. During the lockout, the NFL was playing both ends. While dissuading the 49ers ownership from getting dollars for the Santa Clara building, the league was lobbying St. Paul lawmakers for money for a Vikings facility.
The entire sports industry is not every lovable and there is not a better illustration of that than looking at the Twin-Cities, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Los Angeles.
In the vagabond days of the National Basketball Association, Minneapolis was co-opted into the Basketball Association of America from the National Basketball League in 1948 because the team featured George Mikan. Minneapolis had won the 1947-48 National Basketball League title with Mikan but you won't find any existence of that fact in NBA annuals. The Basketball Association of America absorbed most of the NBL teams by 1949 and changed the league's name to the National Basketball Association. Minneapolis was the best team in the league and won a number of titles but when Mikan retired after 1954, the team went downhill on the court and attendance fell off. By 1957 it became clear Minneapolis was no longer going to support the Lakers and no new arena was on the horizon like the taxpayers subsidized multiple use stadium in Bloomington. The team owners looked at places like Kansas City and Houston but sold the team to Bob Short.

In 1960 Short moved his Lakers to Los Angeles.
Short departed but Major League Baseball came to the area in 1961. Calvin Griffith moved his Washington Senators to a Minneapolis suburb, Bloomington, to that municipally funded baseball/football park. The American Football League awarded a franchise to Bloomington in 1959 but the NFL convinced the Minneapolis AFL owners to drop their plan to join the football start up league in 1960 and join the NFL in 1961. The NFL's Chicago Cardinals franchise played a few games in Minneapolis in the late 1950s.
By the 1970s, the baseball Minnesota Twins and the NFL's Vikings ownership group decided that the Bloomington facility was economically unworkable. The Vikings ownership almost pulled a Bob Short and looked at Los Angeles as a solution. As the spin masters and the image makers were pushing themes like "40 for 60" (40 players putting it all on the line for 60 minutes to reach the Super Bowl) or the "Purple People Eaters" tying the Vikings purple color uniforms with the teams defensive linemen, the Vikings owners were looking at padding the bottom line.
The Vikings ownership had Los Angeles wanderlust in the late 1970s when it became clear that Los Angeles Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom was eyeing Anaheim as a future home for his Rams. Rosenbloom had purchased the Baltimore Colts in 1953 but by the early 1970s, Rosenbloom wanted out of Memorial Stadium. In 1972 in a complicated deal which involved tax attorney Hugh Culverhouse, Rosenbloom traded his Baltimore Colts to businessman Robert Irsay who had just purchased the Rams. Culverhouse who knew all the ins and outs of the NFL financially ended up with the Tampa Bay expansion franchise even though someone else bought it from the league. Thomas McCloskey for whatever reason never went through with the purchase. Irsay continued the Rosenbloom battle for a new Baltimore stadium.
In the mid 1970s, the NFL did a survey of potential areas that could support an NFL franchise. Anaheim was the top choice. Rosenbloom had that survey in hand and went south to Anaheim. That opened up the Los Angeles Coliseum for a new tenant. The Vikings ownership, Irsay and Oakland Raiders managing general partner took a look.
The Vikings kicked the tires at the LA Coliseum.
When asked about the Vikings ownership wanderlust during the National Football League versus Al Davis trail after Davis sued the league to move to Los Angeles, Rozelle said no team was locked in its location in perpetuity.
The Vikings ownership did get a taxpayers funded in Minneapolis multi-use stadium which also housed the Twins baseball team.
When Al Davis asked Rozelle for the same treatment as the Vikings received, Rozelle said the NFL would not allow the Raiders to move. A proposed deal that Davis and Oakland had agreed to was then pulled off the table by Oakland after Rozelle promised Oakland that Davis would not move.
Irsay also kicked the tires at the LA Coliseum. In 1984 Irsay moved his Colts to Indianapolis after exploring Phoenix, Indianapolis, Memphis, Jacksonville and LA.
Prior to 1980 the NFL had never tried to block a move. Dayton moved to Brooklyn in 1930. That franchise was merged in 1945 with the Boston Yanks with the team playing in Boston in 1946, 1947 and 1948. The franchise was moved to New York in 1949. The team folded after three years with the remnants of the franchise ending up in Dallas in 1952. That team or piece of that team went to Baltimore in 1953 when Rosenbloom bought it.
(Jim Irsay's Indianapolis Colts lineage includes Dayton, Brooklyn, Boston, Miami, Baltimore, New York, Dallas, Akron, Ohio and Baltimore).
The Cleveland Rams in 1936 and jumped to the NFL in 1937. The franchise moved to LA in 1946. That franchise had started off in the second American Football League. The NFL also (in reality CBS Chairman William Paley) paid the Bidwill family $500,000 in 1960 to relocate the Bidwill Chicago Cardinals to move to St. Louis. It was strictly a television business deal as Paley's CBS owned and operated station in Chicago, WBBM, was unable to broadcast any of the six Chicago Bears road games in the city and suburbs because of NFL blackout rules since both the Bears and Cardinals would always be home except for the few times that Bidwill sent his Cardinals to Buffalo or Minneapolis to play "home" games.
The official story is that Bidwill was paid the money to move the temporary grandstand that was used in Comiskey Park for home games to St. Louis' Busch Stadium.
In 1961 the Minneapolis AFL owners gave the NFL $600,000 for the right to operate a Minneapolis franchise in the league. Over in the American Football League, Barron Hilton (the man who Donald Trump saw as a charter member of "The Lucky Sperm Club" because Barron's father Conrad made the Hilton money from the hotel chain thus reducing Barron to trivial status) moved his football team to San Diego in 1961. Ironically the San Diego Chargers franchise is also rumored to be interested in moving up the coast to L.A. The Spanos family has been looking for a new San Diego stadium for 10 years.
Both Anaheim and Los Angeles lost NFL teams after 1994. Rosenbloom's widow Georgia Frontiere took her Rams to St. Louis. Davis went back to Oakland in the spring of 1995 after the NFL got involved in his negotiations with Hollywood Park racetrack to build a stadium at the site. Davis had gotten assurances from the NFL that he would stage five Super Bowls in the new building in 10 years after completion. The promise was changed to three then one. The NFL, as Davis' partners, decided that the stadium should have a second tenant with Davis getting a year head start to sell club seats, luxury boxes, signage including a stadium title rights holder. The deal broke down and Davis went back to the Bay Area.
Ironically some in the NFL wanted Davis to partner in the Santa Clara-49ers proposed deal. The Davis lease in Oakland ends in two years. The Ralph Wilson lease with New York and Erie County for the Orchard Park facility usage ends in two years. The 49ers-Santa Clara project is still in the fundraising stages. San Diego officials would like to work out a deal with the Spanos family for a new facility. Not everyone can move to L.A.

It is Zygi Wilf's turn to get a new Minneapolis-St. Paul facility and the league has thrown out Los Angeles as a possible landing spot for Wilf.
Wilf's Vikings have not won a game this year but the on field action is insignificant and inconsequential. Wilf's Vikings showdown with the Minnesota legislature is the only game that matters in 2011. If Wilf's Vikings lose, L.A., according to Governor Dayton and the NFL, is waiting.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition" is available at bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or Amazon Kindle.