Continued: Vikings turn up heat over stadium

In the clearest sign that the Minnesota Vikings are drawing a line in the sand over a new stadium, the team abruptly broke off relations Wednesday with the Metrodome's owners over plans to play there after the next two years.

Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf sent a strongly worded letter to the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission that said they were "shocked, exasperated and extremely disappointed" by the commission's attempt to keep the Vikings at the Dome beyond 2011, when the team's lease expires.

The Wilfs have said they have no plans to move the team out of Minnesota, but Wednesday's move indicates that the team is tiring of the lack of progress on a new stadium even as the Vikings enjoy one of their best seasons on the field.

"Come February, the Minnesota Vikings will have only 20 games remaining on our Metrodome lease," the letter noted. "Your actions yesterday leave us confused and questioning the future of this franchise."

The commission will vote today on a plan that would effectively penalize the team for not extending its lease beyond two years.

Commission Chairman Roy Terwilliger said Wednesday night that the commission was working "in good faith" to help the Vikings. "It's kind of a negotiation-type thing," he said. "We're the public body working with [the Vikings], trying to do everything to reconstruct a facility on the location of the Metrodome."

The commission's proposal would award the team all post-season stadium revenues if it agrees to a lease extension. But if the Vikings refuse, the team would have to pay $4 million a year in rent that the commission has waived since 2002 to help the team's finances.

The Wilfs point out in their letter that the Vikings are at the bottom of the league in revenues and "have the most uncompetitive stadium deal in the NFL."

New stadium inching forward

Though the stadium approval by the Legislature next year remains a long shot, there are behind-the-scenes signs that a new stadium for the Vikings is inching forward.

The Wilfs' latest move might, in fact, accelerate that progress as the Vikings ratchet up pressure on state and local leaders.

A downtown Minneapolis business group known as Home Field Advantage, which pushed the Twins baseball stadium to reality, has recently re-formed to do the same for the Vikings.

Vikings President Mark Wilf, the brother of team owner Zygi Wilf, said the Vikings have met with the group, though both sides are close-mouthed on what stadium strategies are being discussed.

In meetings with business leaders, the Vikings have focused on the revenue stream already generated by the team and fans: $26 million yearly in taxes to state and local governments. If that revenue could be diverted to a new stadium, team officials argue, the remaining financing gap could be just $6 million to $19 million a year.

"I would say there's tiny steps," said David Olson, president of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

Olson's group is conducting its own study of possible financing options. An old hand at lobbying, Olson said that any diversion of taxes is "going to be tougher to sell because you're moving [state] general fund money around."

The Vikings even appear to have figured out a temporary home, should the team decamp from the aging Metrodome: the new University of Minnesota Gophers stadium.

The University of Minnesota's chief financial officer, Richard Pfutzenreuter, said last week that "there's an understanding that we're part of the community, and [the Vikings will] likely play" at the university's TCF Bank Stadium while its stadium is being built.

Leveraging the moment

With the state facing a multibillion-dollar budget deficit and the politics of the 2010 governor's race looming overhead, the Vikings are busily trying to harness the team's mounting popularity as it moves through a season in which it has just one loss and is quarterbacked by mega-star Brett Favre.

At a fan appreciation event Tuesday in Owatonna, Mark Wilf slapped high-fives as he moved through a line of cheering students at an intermediate school, entering to loud applause with Vikings players Bryant McKinnie and Phil Loadholt.

Afterward, in a local TV interview, Wilf proclaimed himself "hopeful and encouraged" about stadium prospects.

A short time later, at a local chamber of commerce luncheon, a Vikings official told the crowd, "We need help" with the team's stadium effort. Seated next to Mark Wilf was Sen. Dick Day, R-Owatonna, who wants casino gambling at the Canterbury Park horse-racing track to generate revenues that could be help pay for a stadium.

But even amid the cheering, balloons and fawning questions -- "What's it like to have Brett Favre on the team?" one person asked -- there is also skepticism in places like Owatonna.

"With unemployment approaching around the 10 percent numbers, it's hard for the people to get their minds around ... what it would take to get something like that done," said Jason Pohlen, an Owatonna Area Chamber of Commerce official and Wells Fargo employee.

Even Day, standing near two Vikings cheerleaders, said he had to be realistic. "I could never go to the people of Owatonna and ask" for taxes for a new stadium. "My area just defeated two school district levies," he added.

Multiple obstacles

Still, there are signs of movement, including last week's announcement by House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, a DFL gubernatorial candidate, that a "Purple Ribbon" task force should be formed to study the issue. A spokesman for Kelliher -- who has not made a new stadium a priority -- said the speaker was responding to the many stadium inquiries she received while campaigning.

Vikings' stadium spokesman Lester Bagley said that by mid-December, a new sports facilities commission study will show costs below the original $950 million, due to a flattened economy and lowered labor costs.

Bagley told business leaders last week that the Vikings also are studying a possible 2 percent hike in the metro area's hospitality tax that could generate up to $16 million a year.

Sam Grabarski, who heads the Minneapolis Downtown Council, said that Home Field Advantage wants a multi-purpose stadium with a retractable roof that could host not only the Vikings, but other large-scale events, such as the NCAA basketball tournament. "The Vikings are very important to the business community, and so we have no choice but to work with them," Grabarski said.

At the university, Pfutzenreuter said that while there have been no extensive talks between the school and the Vikings, there is an informal understanding.

"We're not dumb here," he said. "They're going to need to play" at the university. "There's been no discussion of terms and conditions -- and there will be terms and conditions."

Mike Kaszuba • 651-222-1673 Kevin Duchschere • 612.673-4455