



The agreements make concrete the general terms included in the stadium bill passed by the Legislature in 2012. As part of the deals' being finalized, the Vikings released more detail on their side of the financing, including the revelation that the Wilf family intends to contribute $100 million from personal funds toward the stadium.

The highest-profile of the issues resolved was the amount and scope of "personal seat license" fees.

Under the agreement, those one-time fees would be charged on 75 percent of the seats in the stadium -- 48,750 out of 65,000. The highest-priced license would be $10,000 and the lowest would be less than $1,000, including some at $500. Eighty percent would cost less than $3,000.


The team would make up any shortage if they can't sell $100 million worth of licenses, said Michele Kelm-Helgen, chairwoman of the authority.


Dayton said Thursday after seeing the deal that he'd prefer no money was charged for seat licenses but that he recognized they were part of putting together a deal for an NFL stadium. "We had to make a deal," he said.

Dayton praised the stadium authority for getting seat-license revenue down from the Vikings' preference of $154 million. Vikings officials said later that according to their research, they might have been able to sell $200 million worth of seat licenses.

The $100 million from seat licenses goes toward the Vikings' total contribution of $477 million on the $975 million project. The state is kicking in $348 million and the city of Minneapolis $150 million.



The team is securing a $250 million loan, $100 million of which is backed by the seat-license revenue. The remaining $100 million is coming directly out of the Wilfs' pockets, Poppen said.




The authority gets:

-- $8.5 million in rent per year from the team, with a 3 percent annual inflation increase.

-- $1.5 million per year from the team for capital improvements, increasing 3 percent a year.

-- Revenue from advertising, rental of club/event spaces, concessions at authority events.

-- Revenue from groups touring the stadium.

-- Vikings pay all game-day expenses.

The Vikings get:

-- Revenue from naming rights for the stadium and plaza.

-- Concessions and ticket sales for Vikings events.

-- Advertising and sponsorships.



She did say in total the authority will get roughly $1 million per home game under the rent and capital contribution agreements, which represents about 70 percent of the operating costs. At the team's current home, the Metrodome, the authority clears about $600,000 per game from its share of revenues, she said.

As part of the agreement, the Vikings also have said they'll pay for the portion of a financial and legal due diligence effort the authority undertook after a New Jersey judge found the Wilf family had committed fraud and racketeering violations in connection with a decades-old apartment complex deal.



Several members of the public complained at Thursday's meeting that the vote was being taken before public comment and that the contracts weren't made public before the meeting. Kelm-Helgen said the agreements mirror the enabling legislation, which was subject to numerous public hearings. She also said the agreements were being finalized right up until the time of the meeting.

Stadium critic Rep. Bob Barrett, a Republican from Lindstrom, said during the public comment period that he expected the public contribution to be less, that even the cheapest seats won't be affordable, and that the deal ought to make Minnesotans angry. "Once again the Vikings snookered us," he told the Pioneer Press later.

After Thursday's vote, the next step in the stadium process is the delivery later this month of a maximum price from the contractor Mortenson. After that, Mortenson becomes the "construction manager at risk," which caps the authority's risk, Kelm-Helgen said.




Rep. Joe Atkins, DFL-Inver Grove Heights, expressed frustration that the agreements were to be approved by the authority before the committee had a chance to see them. "How do we perform oversight on that?" he asked.

Committee co-chair Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, said the authority was charged with the task of negotiating for the state. He said Atkins' concerns that the committee needed a more consistent meeting schedule were being addressed but added he didn't want to get into a "spar fight" with Atkins over the issue.
