After today's meeting with Gov. Mark Dayton in St. Paul, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he would reveal in the next few days the league's plan to help pay for the Vikings' new stadium.
FIRST DOWN:
The old G-3 stadium fund dried up in 2006. However, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told me last week about another way the league can help pay for stadiums. Here's a portion of Aiello's email to me:
"Teams can apply for some financing through the league via a club seat waiver approved by the clubs, whereby the portion of club seat revenue that would otherwise go to the visiting team goes instead to help finance the stadium for a period of time."
I don't know how much that would generate, but it would be a way for the other 31 teams to help the Vikings replace the Metrodump. While owners aren't thrilled to part with their visiting club-seat cut, they probably would make more in the long run because a new stadium would generate more club-seat revenue that the Metrodump.
There's also the possibility that a successor program to the G-3 fund could be part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, Aiello said.
SECOND DOWN:
With the lockout sucking the news out of the league, the NFL Network's weekly countdown of the top 100 current NFL players gets a lot of action as a talking point. This week's topic is Tony Romo at No. 72.
