Editorial: For Vikings, patience is a necessary virtue

Bridge, floods have made new stadium a tougher sell.

Last update: October 3, 2007 - 6:55 PM

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"We're a family-run business, approaching 54 years....We think very long-term. We're very patient. I see that here, with the football fans."

Zygi Wilf, to laughter in response, at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Oct. 2.

If Zygi Wilf's last name were Dayton or Pillsbury, he couldn't have spoken words better attuned to Minnesota sensibilities than the ones he uttered Tuesday at the University of Minnesota's McNamara Center.

Wilf avowed that his family thinks of itself not as the owners, but as the "stewards of this great franchise," the Minnesota Vikings.

His praise was fulsome for the love and loyalty Minnesotans exhibit for his NFL team. He described the world-class stadium he wants Minnesota to build for that team as just deserts and as a point of pride for worthy fans.

Give Wilf credit for striking just the right tone. If he and his family are here for the long haul, they should not be discomfited by the change in receptivity to stadium proposals that has occurred at the State Capitol in recent weeks.

The senators and representatives sent to St. Paul in the 2006 election were already a more stadium-averse set than their 2005-06 predecessors. Many new members had campaigned on promises to significantly boost education and health care spending, and to "just say no" to facility requests from sports teams.

Then the Interstate 35W bridge fell, and seven southeastern Minnesota counties were socked with record floods. Almost in tandem with the bridge's collapse, legislators' interest in raising any tax, state or local, for the benefit of professional sports plummeted to what may be an all-time low.

Wilf acknowledged that Minnesota has public needs more pressing than sports facilities. Yet he said he will take his case to the 2008 Legislature for up to $700 million in taxpayer funding for a retractable-roof, multiuse stadium on the Metrodome site. His haste, he said, is spurred by rising construction costs, and a recognition of something Minnesotans should see too: A people can be defined by the quality of the things they hold in common -- and in modern America, an NFL stadium is one such thing.

His message is valid. But it would take a strong, personal push from a popular Gov. Tim Pawlenty to break through the mounting dam of political resistance to funding another new stadium. Without a battering ram of that sort next year, Wilf's chances of success at the Capitol next year are small.

"We're very patient. We're here for the long term," Wilf said. We suspect that to get a new Vikings stadium, he'll need to be.

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