Minnesota Sports Forum

Or...just hear me out on this...maybe Glen Taylor, the guy worth 2 billion dollars should pay for a new stadium himself if he wants one? What other business gets tax payer money to get a product that the public doesn't benefit from? Better game experience? Please. Stadiums are antiquated anyway. Watching the game at home on an HD TV will always be better then driving in the middle of winter, paying for parking, and sitting in a shitty seat next to some smelly fat guy.

Glens been running a failing business since he started running it, why should he get any type of tax money?

Who pays for stadiums is simply a matter of leverage. The city has none to force an owner to pay for it themselves because they'll just go to a different city who will pay for their new stadium. So you can pick. Keep your team and foot half the bill (the owners aren't getting these things for free) or watch the team walk. It's really that simple. As long as there is a city looking for a team in any sport, the existing city that team is located in will either foot half the bill or watch them walk. You don't get wealthy by spending all your money and if you have the option to get the same thing for less you'll always take the cheapest option.

khans2k5 wrote:Who pays for stadiums is simply a matter of leverage. The city has none to force an owner to pay for it themselves because they'll just go to a different city who will pay for their new stadium. So you can pick. Keep your team and foot half the bill (the owners aren't getting these things for free) or watch the team walk. It's really that simple. As long as there is a city looking for a team in any sport, the existing city that team is located in will either foot half the bill or watch them walk. You don't get wealthy by spending all your money and if you have the option to get the same thing for less you'll always take the cheapest option.

Well said, Kahns.

I believe that the Soccer stadium will be next... With a face lift Target Center will be fine for the next 15 plus years. No way in hell a new arena will get built in this city during Glen's lifetime - sorry Glen! Unless of course we get a more "intimate" arena for the juggernaut Lynx!

I don't think it is as much about the Wolves as it is about the Target Center is a dump in the middle of Minneapolis. The city could use a better venue for concerts and events that also would have Wolves games in my opinion. The building is barely 10 years older then Excel, but seems like to it is 30 years older. Certainly didn't age well.

bleedspeed177 wrote:I don't think it is as much about the Wolves as it is about the Target Center is a dump in the middle of Minneapolis. The city could use a better venue for concerts and events that also would have Wolves games in my opinion. The building is barely 10 years older then Excel, but seems like to it is 30 years older. Certainly didn't age well.

My guess is they didn't build it with the idea of being one of the top facilities back then. It was also a few years before what seems like a boon of making sports facilities more top notch in a few ways than they did. I've never been in Target center and I haven't really looked at what they are planning to change except the drawings of the outside. I would assume there will be some decently big changes since the Lynx will have to play elsewhere for a summer.

It's a different situation but here in Lincoln they built a new Pinnacle Bank Arena for basketball and concerts which is pretty good and they refurbished the old Bob Devaney arena to be used for Volleyball in addition to it already being used for Gumnastic and Wrestling. Volleyball is pretty big deal here and where they played previously was quite small. They have quite a streak of sell outs and even with a much brighter venue they had a 2,000 person waiting list for the "new" facility. I went to a couple games after they did a lot of improvements for that sport and now they have redone the outside. It looks like a new building outside and a great facility compared to the former look that was 80's at best. It cost about 20 million and that included adding offices on one side. I figured it would have cost more to do everything that they did. I know Devaney is a smaller space but $129 million MIGHT go a long way towards the Target Center.

129M can't hurt it, but 500M builds you a new arena. I look at it if you redo the arena now it will cost 500M in 10-15 years you will be looking at 800M. I say just bite the bullet and do it right. There are just to many limitations to the current configuration of the Target Center. You just can't fix the luxury boxes and basement like feel of the concourse without major revisions. I hope I am wrong, but I worry it will feel like the same old dump when they are done with a fancy new corner on the street.

bleedspeed177 wrote:129M can't hurt it, but 500M builds you a new arena. I look at it if you redo the arena now it will cost 500M in 10-15 years you will be looking at 800M. I say just bite the bullet and do it right. There are just to many limitations to the current configuration of the Target Center. You just can't fix the luxury boxes and basement like feel of the concourse without major revisions. I hope I am wrong, but I worry it will feel like the same old dump when they are done with a fancy new corner on the street.

You are touting the Xcel energy center over target center and refer to the luxury suites? Xcel doesn't even have restrooms in each one, while I believe the Target center has them in all of them. That is something that is harder to correct. Acoustics are generally pretty lousy in most of these arenas, which is why you should be going for the stage show and not the music in these larger venues.

10-15 years from now is a long ways off. We might not have the wolves by then, cities may not be ponying up tax dollars by then, hell anything could happen. I'd be happy with a new seat cover and scoreboard!

Seat covers is a must. I get what you are saying, but 129M is about 100M to much to spend on the Target Center improvements.

bleedspeed177 wrote:Seat covers is a must. I get what you are saying, but 129M is about 100M to much to spend on the Target Center improvements.

There was never going to be a situation where they get a new stadium passed in the next 5 years. 129 million is better than 0 million to make the fan experience better. If your options are 129 million dollar renovations or nothing and both eventually lead to a new stadium being built in 10-15 years why would you want the crappier experience? The city just wasn't going to finance and build 3 major stadiums in a decade.