CloakNNNdagger
Hall of Fame
From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. I just had to post this. As fans are being priced out of the NFL experience, the NFL finds ways to squeeze the last penny out of anybody and any entity it can. It is the NFL offering a drug in the form of football, for which the drug dealer will use any means available to create the addicts and make sure that their pathologic dependency can only be quenched by greater and greater financial sacrifices...............In the days of Al Capone, they euphemistically called it "protection."
NFL had a long and pricey Super Bowl wish list
MIKE KASZUBA and ROCHELLE OLSON , Star Tribune staff writers
Updated: June 8, 2014 - 8:54 AM
The National Football League had a long and expensive list of confidential requests before it awarded the 2018 Super Bowl to Minneapolis.
Free police escorts for team owners, and 35,000 free parking spaces. Presidential suites at no cost in high-end hotels. Free billboards across the Twin Cities. Guarantees to receive all revenue from the game’s ticket sales - even a requirement for NFL-preferred ATMs at the stadium.
Those requirements and many others are detailed in 153 pages of NFL specifications for the game. An official on the host committee that successfully sought the game - Minneapolis beat out Indianapolis and New Orleans - said the panel had agreed to a majority of the conditions but would not elaborate.
The document, which the Star Tribune obtained through sources, has not been released publicly but shows how the NFL will control the event and many of its public aspects. The NFL declined to comment on the document and host committee officials are declining to make it public, citing state data privacy laws.
NFL confidential demands for Minneapolis to host Super Bowl
In 153 pages of previously-secret bid specifications [included in this article], the plan to have the NFL control many of the public and private aspects of the event is outlined.
The National Football League had a long and expensive list of confidential requests before it awarded the 2018 Super Bowl to Minneapolis.
Free police escorts for team owners, and 35,000 free parking spaces. Presidential suites at no cost in high-end hotels. Free billboards across the Twin Cities. Guarantees to receive all revenue from the game’s ticket sales - even a requirement for NFL-preferred ATMs at the stadium.
Those requirements and many others are detailed in 153 pages of NFL specifications for the game. An official on the host committee that successfully sought the game - Minneapolis beat out Indianapolis and New Orleans - said the panel had agreed to a majority of the conditions but would not elaborate.
The document, which the Star Tribune obtained through sources, has not been released publicly but shows how the NFL will control the event and many of its public aspects. The NFL declined to comment on the document and host committee officials are declining to make it public, citing state data privacy laws.
NFL confidential demands for Minneapolis to host Super Bowl
In 153 pages of previously-secret bid specifications, the plan to have the NFL control many of the public and private aspects of the event is outlined.
Minneapolis City Council President Barb Johnson said “incentives” were necessary to host the Super Bowl, but Mayor Betsy Hodges’ office said it did not know what the city’s host committee ultimately agreed to. “We haven’t seen the bid, so we don’t know what was agreed to,” said Kate Brickman, Hodges’ spokeswoman.
The host committee, which was co-chaired by U.S. Bancorp chief executive Richard Davis, says it has $30 million in private pledges that will be used to help offset public costs for staging the game. But like the bid details, the committee has refused to release information on the private fundraising. A spokesperson said Davis was unavailable for comment.
Others are criticizing the secrecy of the process. “This is wrong,” said former Gov. Arne Carlson, who noted that the game will be played in a new $1 billion Vikings stadium built with a great deal of public financing. “This is a huge public event. It should be transparent. We should know how the NFL operates.”
The NFL’s requests covered everything from free access to three “top quality” golf courses during the summer or fall before the Super Bowl, to free curbside parking at a yet-to-be designated NFL House - defined as a “high-end, exclusive drop-in hospitality facility for our most valued and influential guests to meet, unwind, network and conduct business.”
‘Government Guarantees’
Under a six-page “Government Guarantees” section, the NFL also asked that local police provide officers, at no cost, for anti-counterfeit enforcement teams focused on tickets and merchandise. Other provisions in the section ask for government resolutions requiring “high-level management” at local airports to “cooperate with those needing special services”, including those arriving on team charters and private planes. The NFL also asked that government licensing fees be waived for as many as 450 courtesy cars and buses.
The “Government Guarantees” section, in addition, also demands that public officials create “clean zones” that cover at least a one-mile radius around the football stadium and a six-block radius from the NFL’s headquarters hotel. Creating “clean zones,” according to the NFL, typically “restricts certain activities” and “provides for the temporary suspension of new, and possibly existing, permits for such activities.”
In other parts of the bid specifications, the league asked that at least 20 free billboards “in NFL designated areas” across the Twin Cities be made available. The host city also was asked to pay all travel and expenses for an optional “familiarization trip” for 180 people to come to the Twin Cities in advance of the Super Bowl to inspect the region.
TVs, ATMs, bowling
The NFL’s requirements strike at every phase of the game’s preparations.
For example, the document notes that if placing logos of the NFL, Super Bowl, and teams that are playing in the game on the field requires different turf to be installed in the new downtown Minneapolis stadium, there would be no charge for that to the league. Also, the document states that the hotels where the teams stay should be obligated to televise the NFL Network for a year before the Super Bowl - at no cost to the league.
The NFL asked that if cellphone signal strength at the team hotels is not strong enough, then the host committee - at no cost to the league - “will be responsible [for erecting] a sufficient number of portable cellular towers.”
Inside the stadium for the Super Bowl, the league asked that it be able to install ATMs that accept NFL preferred credit and debit cards - and for officials to cover or remove ATMs that “conflict with NFL preferred payment services.”
In another requirement, the NFL requested that as many as two “top quality bowling venues” be reserved at no cost to the league for the Super Bowl Celebrity Bowling Classic.
THE REST OF THIS PATHETIC STORY
NFL had a long and pricey Super Bowl wish list
MIKE KASZUBA and ROCHELLE OLSON , Star Tribune staff writers
Updated: June 8, 2014 - 8:54 AM
The National Football League had a long and expensive list of confidential requests before it awarded the 2018 Super Bowl to Minneapolis.
Free police escorts for team owners, and 35,000 free parking spaces. Presidential suites at no cost in high-end hotels. Free billboards across the Twin Cities. Guarantees to receive all revenue from the game’s ticket sales - even a requirement for NFL-preferred ATMs at the stadium.
Those requirements and many others are detailed in 153 pages of NFL specifications for the game. An official on the host committee that successfully sought the game - Minneapolis beat out Indianapolis and New Orleans - said the panel had agreed to a majority of the conditions but would not elaborate.
The document, which the Star Tribune obtained through sources, has not been released publicly but shows how the NFL will control the event and many of its public aspects. The NFL declined to comment on the document and host committee officials are declining to make it public, citing state data privacy laws.
NFL confidential demands for Minneapolis to host Super Bowl
In 153 pages of previously-secret bid specifications [included in this article], the plan to have the NFL control many of the public and private aspects of the event is outlined.
The National Football League had a long and expensive list of confidential requests before it awarded the 2018 Super Bowl to Minneapolis.
Free police escorts for team owners, and 35,000 free parking spaces. Presidential suites at no cost in high-end hotels. Free billboards across the Twin Cities. Guarantees to receive all revenue from the game’s ticket sales - even a requirement for NFL-preferred ATMs at the stadium.
Those requirements and many others are detailed in 153 pages of NFL specifications for the game. An official on the host committee that successfully sought the game - Minneapolis beat out Indianapolis and New Orleans - said the panel had agreed to a majority of the conditions but would not elaborate.
The document, which the Star Tribune obtained through sources, has not been released publicly but shows how the NFL will control the event and many of its public aspects. The NFL declined to comment on the document and host committee officials are declining to make it public, citing state data privacy laws.
NFL confidential demands for Minneapolis to host Super Bowl
In 153 pages of previously-secret bid specifications, the plan to have the NFL control many of the public and private aspects of the event is outlined.
Minneapolis City Council President Barb Johnson said “incentives” were necessary to host the Super Bowl, but Mayor Betsy Hodges’ office said it did not know what the city’s host committee ultimately agreed to. “We haven’t seen the bid, so we don’t know what was agreed to,” said Kate Brickman, Hodges’ spokeswoman.
The host committee, which was co-chaired by U.S. Bancorp chief executive Richard Davis, says it has $30 million in private pledges that will be used to help offset public costs for staging the game. But like the bid details, the committee has refused to release information on the private fundraising. A spokesperson said Davis was unavailable for comment.
Others are criticizing the secrecy of the process. “This is wrong,” said former Gov. Arne Carlson, who noted that the game will be played in a new $1 billion Vikings stadium built with a great deal of public financing. “This is a huge public event. It should be transparent. We should know how the NFL operates.”
The NFL’s requests covered everything from free access to three “top quality” golf courses during the summer or fall before the Super Bowl, to free curbside parking at a yet-to-be designated NFL House - defined as a “high-end, exclusive drop-in hospitality facility for our most valued and influential guests to meet, unwind, network and conduct business.”
‘Government Guarantees’
Under a six-page “Government Guarantees” section, the NFL also asked that local police provide officers, at no cost, for anti-counterfeit enforcement teams focused on tickets and merchandise. Other provisions in the section ask for government resolutions requiring “high-level management” at local airports to “cooperate with those needing special services”, including those arriving on team charters and private planes. The NFL also asked that government licensing fees be waived for as many as 450 courtesy cars and buses.
The “Government Guarantees” section, in addition, also demands that public officials create “clean zones” that cover at least a one-mile radius around the football stadium and a six-block radius from the NFL’s headquarters hotel. Creating “clean zones,” according to the NFL, typically “restricts certain activities” and “provides for the temporary suspension of new, and possibly existing, permits for such activities.”
In other parts of the bid specifications, the league asked that at least 20 free billboards “in NFL designated areas” across the Twin Cities be made available. The host city also was asked to pay all travel and expenses for an optional “familiarization trip” for 180 people to come to the Twin Cities in advance of the Super Bowl to inspect the region.
TVs, ATMs, bowling
The NFL’s requirements strike at every phase of the game’s preparations.
For example, the document notes that if placing logos of the NFL, Super Bowl, and teams that are playing in the game on the field requires different turf to be installed in the new downtown Minneapolis stadium, there would be no charge for that to the league. Also, the document states that the hotels where the teams stay should be obligated to televise the NFL Network for a year before the Super Bowl - at no cost to the league.
The NFL asked that if cellphone signal strength at the team hotels is not strong enough, then the host committee - at no cost to the league - “will be responsible [for erecting] a sufficient number of portable cellular towers.”
Inside the stadium for the Super Bowl, the league asked that it be able to install ATMs that accept NFL preferred credit and debit cards - and for officials to cover or remove ATMs that “conflict with NFL preferred payment services.”
In another requirement, the NFL requested that as many as two “top quality bowling venues” be reserved at no cost to the league for the Super Bowl Celebrity Bowling Classic.
THE REST OF THIS PATHETIC STORY
