Oh, no, another professional sports team is looking to build another swanky new stadium, and here they come to the Minnesota Legislature.

Instead, three legislative requests from the city of St. Paul on behalf of the Minnesota United professional soccer team are so reasonable Minnesotans easily can embrace the return of big-league soccer to our state after a nearly 40-year absence. Minnesota United, now a minor league team playing in the National Sports Stadium in Blaine, will be a Major League Soccer expansion team in 2018, playing in a $150 million, 23,500-seat stadium at Snelling and University avenues in St. Paul.

That's a $150 million stadium paid for entirely by the team. The city of St. Paul does plan to contribute $18 million in infrastructure improvements to streets, plazas and other public spaces, as it should. But tax dollars from northeastern Minnesota for the privilege of having a Major League Soccer team to follow, root for and boast: $0.

"To have a team privately funding its stadium is certainly unprecedented, especially in this region," St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman told the Duluth News Tribune Opinion page recently. "This is a huge deal especially as we become a more diverse community with folks for whom soccer was their game growing up. I'm a hockey guy. I love my Wild, but I spent a lot of years on the sidelines watching my kids play soccer. It's the world's game."

Increasingly, soccer is Minnesota's game, too. The fastest-growing sport in the U.S. is played by 68,000 young Minnesotans, according to the Minnesota Youth Soccer Association. Of the state's 117 youth soccer clubs, 51 are outside the Twin Cities metro area, including the Northland's Gitchi Gummi Soccer Club.

To help Minnesota United, lawmakers can grant a tax exemption for the 12-acre stadium site, much of which already has been tax-exempt because the site for decades was a Metro Transit bus barn. Lawmakers also can approve a tax exemption on construction materials for the stadium, an exemption every other professional sports stadium has received, according to the city. And they can approve a license to sell liquor at the stadium.

None of those seem too much to ask for 1,900 construction jobs, 200 to 300 long-term stadium positions, and a major private investment that's expected to increase 10-fold the tax value of properties near the stadium site.

"We have kids across the state of Minnesota playing soccer on a regular basis. As some of the popularity of other major sports wanes a little bit and soccer begins to grow across Minnesota, this will be their team to watch," Coleman said. "Having another major league sports team has a lot of impact for all of Minnesota. … The economic impact will ripple across the state."

Allowing Minnesota to feel good about welcoming back this big-time, major league sport.

FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE