I Dislike Your Favorite Team

The Vikings initially said, "No more than $427 million." So the Senate and the House got together and took the House's increase of the Viking's share of $100 million ($532 million total), and the Senate's increase of $25 million ($452 million), and amazingly, ended up in the $50 million area. Compromise! Yay! And the Vikings are for it. So, wow, compromise and brinkmanship have resulted in a deal in which everyone gives up a bit of stuff to make the stadium happen?.

Well, we are hardly there yet, though if the Vikings use the rule that I think that they probably do when no one is looking, in which you think of everything in $30 Million chunks, or Brett Favre's Last Contract (BFLC), then obviously giving up $50 Million, or less than 2 years of BFLC money is a great investment, especially compared to what the Vikings spent on the original BFLC. The original BFLC took a team that rode a great year from an old, almost done QB, and threw him out there one more time for a losing record, and a franchise in the course of recovering from that decision, that maybe, maybe hit bottom last year with a 3-13 record. Their total cost for the stadium is less than a decade of BFLC. Easy peasy. That is money that will actual return a profit for their investment, compared to the original BFLC, which returned nothing, unless you value dick pics. 

But you know what? While I think this deal is probably going to pass both the House and the Senate, there's still an issue of where the money is coming from (I don't think the backstop deal isn't impressive in its foresight, if one were to ask me. Also, if one were to ask me, I'd argue that funding deals should be strong enough to not require backstops.)

There's also still that looming lawsuit from any able bodied Minneapolis citizen that is certain to come. And Minneapolis is only being asked to finance $150 million, or just 5 more BLFC's. The Vikings may want to ponder a way in which the Minneapolis contribution is taken out of consideration. 

The Vikings know for a fact that their franchise gets boosted from their "only" $800 million dollar value into the Billion plus the moment the first bulldozer moves into position to build this new stadium. Maybe, it will behoove them to stop dicking around, stop arguing every little point and say, "We'll be heroes, we will pay the City of Minneapolis 1 (One) BLFC a year for 5 years to pay their share of the stadium." 

Will they do that? Probably not. Because the Wilfs aren't tragic heroes struggling to give us something we really want but don't know we want; they are kind of dicks, strong-arming a cash strapped state when they, in all reality, don't have anywhere else to go. They've won, it appears, and it only cost them the same dollar amount they put on a season and a half of a 42 year old QB throwing interceptions. 

*Just in case you are wondering, out of state readers, "Hot Dish" isn't a weird name for a blog in Minnesota. Hot Dish is a casserole with tater tots. Yeah, we're really like that up here. Yes, it is fucking delicious. Jealous? Also, there is a metric shit tonne of references to Hot Dish in Minnesota publications.