Very few people like the idea of giving money to billionaires and very wealthy people.
However ...
Sometimes, it is necessary.
Sometimes, when it means keeping a team from moving to another state, you have to be willing to subsidize rich folk.
That's what needs to happen with the Vikings and their owners: The state of Minnesota has to be willing to provide many millions of dollars toward a new stadium.
The state also has to be willing to work with the Vikings.
Gov. Mark Dayton let the Vikings know earlier this week that a new stadium has to be built on the Metrodome site in order to get the Legislature to support it. It came off as an our-way-or-the-highway ultimatum.
Bad idea.
That's no way to get a deal done. Dayton and state legislators have to be willing to work with Vikings owners Zygi Wilf, Mark Wilf, Lennie Wilf and their partners. They have to be willing to seriously consider the Arden Hills site or any other site preferred by the Wilfs. And they have to keep this in mind: Neither Wilf nor his partners have any ties to Minnesota other than the Vikings.
They're East Coast guys, Jersey guys mostly, and there isn't the emotional connection there would be if the team were owned by a born-and-bred Minnesotan.
So when you give people with no real ties to Minnesota an our-way-or-the-highway ultimatum, you have to be prepared for the fallout if the highway is the route they choose. And part of the fallout will be that many of the people in power who refused to work with the Wilfs will be blamed for the Vikings leaving Minnesota.
And they should be.
