New Vikings stadium: Is now really the time?

We are in the post-Super Bowl doldrums when fans can stare glassy-eyed at a TV screen devoid of any meaningful entertainment.
The fare we get on weekend TV is such a lame substitute, one wonders why our free enterprise system can't do something about it. Maybe it's this void that prodded Tony Kornheiser to go off his rocker and make the sexist statements that got him suspended at ESPN. Even when baseball gets going, it's no real substitute. Even in its prime as a sport, before the 1994 strike, baseball seemed watered down because there are 162 games in the regular season schedule. Only very rarely does a regular season game carry any feeling of significance.
The 1994 strike was revelatory for me because it taught me to get through summer very happily without baseball. Consider it deprogramming. And I'm still deprogrammed. The 1998 home run derby involving those steroid monsters budged me only a little. It seemed suspicious, too, because prudent baseball strategy would dictate that these guys get more intentional walks than they did. But could you imagine a stadium brimming with wide-eyed fans salivating over the prospect of seeing a milestone home run, reacting to one or two intentional walks to these comic-book-cover musclebound freaks?
The pitchers instead, I theorize, made a reasonable attempt to get these guys out - nothing blatant in terms of serving up gopher balls - in situations where they really should have walked the guys. Fans might have actually asked for their money back.
Any time sound strategy is compromised in pro sports, legitimacy is destroyed. Expedience destroys its essence. Baseball seemed to right its ship a bit after '98, but now with the economy in such tatters, one wonders if those seats can be adequately filled for a 162-game schedule, even in a stadium like the Twins' shiny new one. That new stadium will surely elevate the issue of whether the Vikings deserve their new toy (i.e. stadium) also.
An op-ed in the Wednesday, Feb. 17, Star Tribune was pretty pointed, suggesting that Vikings fans show restraint especially in terms of OKing public dollars for such a venture. Why? Because the NFL is at a juncture now. A group of big market owners apparently wants to stretch its legs and not be encumbered by revenue sharing anymore.
Also endangered, apparently, is the salary cap. The ramifications for Minnesota? Well, we're not big-market. Apparently a new stadium wouldn't put us in the league of those big market entities, according to writer Kevin Geisen. Who is Kevin Geisen? Well, he's a bar owner in St. Paul. Not the glittering credentials one might normally expect in punditry, but I'll take it. Geisen talked about how the NFL could have its own answer to the Red Sox and Yankees, baseball teams who try to spend their way to a title.
I don't even watch baseball playoff games, partly because of the phenomenon that columnist Dave Barry discusses in connection with the sport. He asks "What are baseball playoff games?" And he continues: "Baseball playoff games are games played on TV after everyone has gone to bed."
Baseball in its purest form is meant to be played in daytime. Back when the owners were just as much sportsmen as businessmen, they insisted on this. So when the Minnesota Twins played in the 1965 World Series, I'd hear about the outcome each day when getting home from school. Today the games would extend past my bedtime.
The NFL owners and players are currently in negotiations. That should make us shudder like the old "Count Floyd" character on SCTV. A lockout in the 2011 season could happen. The equivalent of the 1994 baseball season. . .
There is one big difference, though: pro football unlike baseball does have a reasonable substitute. This is Division I college football. This difference between the sports is something that I've always considered extremely odd. The Michigan Wolverines can attract hordes of fans, numbering close to a hundred thousand, to its football facility in the fall, eclipsing all NFL games. Meanwhile, is anything more obscure than Division I college baseball? But isn't baseball America's pastime? Bewildering.
This popularity of college football, I reason, is why pro football players seem to have so much less leverage vs. the owners than baseball players. Because there really is no substitute for major league baseball.
Football players, put bluntly, are more expendable and replaceable. So how much leverage will the NFL players have in the current talks? Very limited, I feel. But will the big market owners get their way and pull away from the pack, creating juggernaut teams that leave everyone else behind? The owners should recognize that direction as fatal for them.
In baseball a mediocre team might have one or two pitchers who can help garner a fair number of wins. But in football, a team that is mediocre across the depth chart wouldn't have a chance. Fans will readily recognize this. The inferior teams will completely lose fan support and the NFL product will plunge. So the owners should protect reasonable parity regardless of the cost.
But could that cost be a strike? Maybe, but the players might realize their vulnerability through such a process, and cave.
Meanwhile, would there be residue like in the wake of the '94 baseball strike? Yes, and it's too bad there isn't a more tidy conflict resolution process. But this is America. And on weekends we can always watch dog shows on TV. Mr. Kornheiser, please consider taking a pill of some kind.
- Brian Williams - Morris Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com