Venue News & Notes: Sell the Metrodome for $1?

A Republican state legislator has proposed selling the Metrodome to the Minnesota Vikings for $1, saying it might be one way to keep the team from leaving the state. Rep. Paul Kohls (R-Victoria), who for a time was a candidate for governor, introduced legislation this week to sell the Metrodome — the team’s home since 1982 — to the Vikings. “Let’s give it to the Vikings and let them do what they want with it,” he said in a statement. “The stadium has long been paid for.” Kohls said he is opposed to providing public subsidies for a new stadium, citing the state’s $1.2 billion budget deficit…

…Edmonton, AB, Oilers owner Daryl Katz finally broke his silence this week to reveal that the $100 million he promised for a new downtown arena has some strings attached. In an interview with 630 CHED, the Oilers official broadcaster, Katz admitted what he had told Edmontonians in the past isn’t exactly the case today: “Precisely how and in what context the $100 million is to be contributed depends on a variety of issues, the most important of which is who owns the arena.”…

…The Santa Clara, CA, City Council wrestled this week with choosing just the right words for a ballot measure that will ask residents in June to approve a $937 million stadium project for the San Francisco 49ers adjacent to the Great America theme park. As the evening progressed, the council appeared to be leaning toward a revised proposal from Vice Mayor Jamie Matthews, who drafted a question for voters that would stress that the stadium would carry “no new taxes for residents” if they back construction of a gleaming new 68,500-seat facility for 49ers games and other events…

…Yankees and Mets fans bid adieu to their stadiums in 2008. Now Giants and Jets fans have said their goodbyes. In this memorabilia-obsessed age, that means they can buy just about any salvageable scrap from their stadium in the Meadowlands. Workers have started ripping down the stadium, so Steiner Sports, which is handling the old stadium’s demolition, has just a few more days to pull out everything it believes can be sold. The snow and cold weather have hampered efforts to remove the roughly 100,000 sq. ft. of turf as well as many of the seats. Steiner is selling pairs of seats for $500, far less than the $1,923 for a pair of seats from Yankee Stadium or the $869 for a pair from Shea Stadium…

…Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser this week called for City Hall to axe its $2 million subsidy of the Truman Sports Complex. He believes that money would be better spent on services for Kansas City residents. “Kansas City needs to concentrate on what matters most to our residents,” he said in his budget letter to city council members. “We have no choice but to now eliminate what is a non-contractual agreement to directly fund the Truman Sports Complex stadiums.” The mayor’s budget ideas will now be debated by the city council, which will adopt the new budget in late March. It takes effect May 1.

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