The Wild ownership has not yet asked for a public handout.
Minnesota legislators who meet in St. Paul may soon be getting a request from a St. Paul-based business asking for money to help renovate its place of business. The National Hockey League’s Minnesota Wild franchise ownership wants to spruce up its 23-year-old home venue but apparently the ownership group has not figured out a way of asking Governor Tim Walz and state legislators the proper way to beg for a government handout. A sports organization asking for a government handout has been a way of life in Minnesota for nearly seven decades. One owner left, Norman Green, who took the National Hockey League’s North Stars franchise to Dallas in 1993. Three basketball franchises failed in the market, the NBA Lakers, the ABA’s Muskies and Pipers. Two other franchises, the WHA’s St. Paul-based Fighting Saints and a second Fighting Saints folded.
In 1953, after watching Milwaukee politicians build a stadium and lure Major League Baseball’s Boston Braves owner Lou Perini to town, Minneapolis and St. Paul politicians spent $8.5 million to build a stadium in Bloomington near Minneapolis and St. Paul. The place opened in 1956. MLB approved the transfer of the Washington franchise to Bloomington in 1960 and a National Football League team started playing there in 1961. The building was outdated by the end of the 1960s. On the same property an arena that could accommodate a National Basketball Association and a National Hockey League team was erected. An NHL team started in 1967 in the arena. Two American Basketball Association teams flopped after two years and one moved to Miami the other to Pittsburgh. Since 1955, the Twin-Cities market has built three baseball stadiums, a football facility, four arenas, a college football stadium and a soccer stadium. It costs billions to construct facilities and none of the venues last forever.
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