The arena in Minneapolis is too old.
Alex Rodriguez wants a new arena built in Minneapolis for his Timberwolves National Basketball Association franchise and his Women’s National Basketball Association’s Minnesota Lynx franchise. Rodriguez said it’s “very important” to get a 21st century state of the art arena built in Minneapolis. And he probably is correct, it is very important to him as an owner to get a new home for his two businesses, one that would be loaded with revenue streams that don’t exist in his present facility. That would include more luxury boxes, more club seats, more restaurants, more concessions and charge higher prices for seats. “Back in the day, it was really a vanity or a luxury to have. Today it’s a necessity, and it’s a necessity to compete,” he said as a guest at the University of Minnesota in a speaker series with the Carlson School of Management. Rodriguez’s teams play in a 35-year-old facility. Rodriguez claimed that he and his partners will get private investors to help finance the new arena and it may take five to seven years for the new arena to open. Rodriguez is not threatening to move the businesses right now.
Minnesota politicians and business leaders in 1954 decided that the Minneapolis area needed to become a major league area despite having the best team in the struggling National Basketball Association and the best player, the Minneapolis Lakers and George Mikan, in town. The Minneapolis Lakers franchise owners never did get an arena and left town for Los Angeles in 1960. Minnesota taxpayers have footed the bill for two multiple purpose stadiums, a baseball stadium, a football stadium, a college football stadium, one arena in Bloomington and a bailout of a Minneapolis arena and two St. Paul arenas in the past 72 years but it is not enough. The stadium and arena game never ends in Minnesota.
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