Stadium has value beyond NFL

Published 12:00pm Friday, January 11, 2008
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Members of the Metroplitan Sports Commission visited the area Tuesday as part of an eight-city “listening tour” to promote the plan of a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings. The $954 million project favored by the commission includes a 65,000-seat retractable-roof stadium as part of a larger development project in downtown Minneapolis at the current site of the Metrodome.

Stopping in Fergus Falls was the commission’s vice chair Loanne Thrane, a Rothsay native who says a stadium will keep football in Minnesota for at least 30 years.

A stadium is a hard sell for taxpayers in Otter Tail County and the rest of outstate Minnesota when looking at its purpose as solely saving an NFL football team.

But the debate runs much deeper. A facility isn’t used only for the Vikings.

Thrane points out that a covered stadium would retain an indoor, climate-controlled facility to host amateur sports, concerts and other events year-round. These are events that Otter Tail County residents might attend on trips to the Twin Cities. Just this November hundreds of county residents traveled to the Metrodome when the Perham High School football team advanced to the state tournament.

When considering support for a stadium, area residents should remember that Fergus Falls’ MSCTC Spartans play their football championships in the Minneapolis stadium. Our high schools play their state band meets in the facility, and our cheerleaders travel to the dome for their state meets.

A stadium just might bring more to outstate Minnesota than meets the eye.

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