MDS pointed out earlier that the new Vikings stadium may host a Super Bowl.
Given the loose, non-binding quid pro quo that the NFL applies when a city/state coughs up big money for a new stadium, it would be a surprise if it doesn’t happen.
What would be a surprise -- and a major one -- is if the new stadium has a retractable roof. Approved via the Minnesota legislative process as a venue with a fixed lid, brothers Zygi and Mark Wilf suggested in a Friday session with reporters that the finished product may have the ability with the press of a button to go topless.
“Well if it’s snowing very, very hard we’ll open up the roof,” Zygi Wilf said, jokingly.
Asked if that means the new building will have a retractable roof, Zygi Wilf said, “Well, I don’t know.”
Mark Wilf was more candid. “We’re going to try to get the maximum number of features within the budgets. . . . We’re going to want to make it something special. And to the extent retractability can get there, we’re going to try to do it.”
And here’s where a cynic (I don’t know any) would say, “Sure, now that you’ve finagled more than $500 million in public money, you can justify spending the extra money that you didn’t have to devote to the project on a retractable roof.”
Then again, how cynical is it to think that the Wilfs didn’t make any serious noise about paying for a retractable roof before the stadium bill was approved because, if they had, plenty of lawmakers would have said, “Why not just spend the money it would take to add a retractable roof on the stadium itself and reduce the burden on the public?”
OK, it’s fairly cynical. There’s also a chance it’s fairly accurate.