Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: I write quite often about sports, of course. And I'm very deeply involved with professional football and know a lot of people in it, have known for years. Wrote a book about it once. And yet, I'm quite often appalled by the grimness with which people approach a game that is played by grown men wearing baggy pants or short pants and getting paid 60 to $70,000 for it. There is intrinsically a drama in big-time sports, of course, sometimes.

And I think as a person in the communications business, it's my responsibility to communicate that when there is that intrinsic drama, and also to communicate the follies in it and the perversities in it, and, I hope, the fun in it. The really grim fan doesn't see the fun in it very often.

And that's why I regret that the person who gets into such a great, black rage at a football game because they've just blown a first down or fumbled the ball on the 10-yard line, would have the opportunity to sit two or three hours with the demigods who he's cheering or booing to find out that they're very normal people and prone to the same kind of goodness and the same kind of temptations that he has as an individual. The difference being that they may be able to run faster, hit harder, and certainly collect a lot more money.

SPEAKER 2: Do you think that this area is going to lose its professional sports teams largely because of the stadium problem?

SPEAKER 1: I think that's a possibility. I don't think the people of Minnesota ought to be stampeded this year into building a domed stadium because of that possibility. On the matter of a new stadium, I think one-- I think you can defend the construction of a new stadium on grounds that somewhat looking down the road after sufficient study is made of where it should be placed and how it should be financed, I think it can be defended on grounds that it is not primarily being built to improve the economic health of the Minnesota Vikings or the Minnesota Twins, but what it means to the people who live here.

I think if you took away professional baseball or professional football, there would be a large sense of loss here, because we do live in a rather remote part of the country. And partly because of the weather itself, I suppose we have a cohesiveness here, a kind of camaraderie they might-- and that might not exist in a place like New York State, certainly doesn't exist in New York State.

And part of the, I think, professional sports function to exert a sort of glue on that process. And we do have-- this is not Minnesota-- this is not the Minneapolis Twins or Vikings, the Minnesota Vikings and Twins. And that's just not for public relations. It's true, they get a sizable part of their patronage, of course, from throughout the state. There would be a sense of loss.

And I think to the extent that a stadium would maintain that part of the cultural assets of Minnesota and would also contribute to the economic health of the place where it was built, let's say downtown or close to downtown Minneapolis or St. Paul, I think. And so that it would then become part of the economic viability of the area, I think, can be defended.

I don't consider it a boondoggle. I don't think any stadium is ever going to pay for itself in the classic ways. And I don't know how you should measure whether it is paying for itself, but I think if people feel that they are part of the world in some way, having a Major League football team to cheer for and to boo at. And it can be done without going into their pockets too flagrantly, and if you're going into their pockets, that they understand you're going into their pockets, then I think it can be defended.

I think four or five years from now, if we do not build a stadium and the Minnesota Twins, for example, continue at their present level, you might call it mediocrity In the won-loss record. I think there is a danger we would lose the baseball team, a very real danger, because there's a possibility that the ownership of that might change hands fairly soon.

Minnesota Vikings, on the other hand, are very healthy now. As long as they retain the man who's the head coach, they're going to win. He's an exceptional coach. I think they could use more seats. There's no question about it. I think these are available or could be made available without the construction of a new stadium. Although, this isn't the way I would like to see it done. So I don't think the danger of the area losing the football team is as great as it is of losing the baseball team, and I think there is a danger of that.