How strange it is, then, to see legislators fighting over tax breaks for the NFL just before the state's bid for Super Bowl LII is due on April 1. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton admonished legislators last week for bickering about the idea of giving roughly $10 million in tax breaks for player salaries, tickets and Super Bowl events. "Life will go on if we can’t keep this out of the partisan politics,” Dayton said Archie Manning Authentic Jersey. “We’ll just have to let the opportunity go by.”

It's an election year, and the fight over the tax breaks might just be the dying breaths of opposition on the issue. Had the state put any of its three recent projects to a referendum -- the Vikings stadium, the University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium or the Minnesota Twins' Target Field -- it's likely each would have been defeated by voters. But two of the stadiums are here, and another one is coming, (Reebok Jonas Hiller Jersey)with corporate executives finishing a bid to showcase a revamped downtown against Indianapolis and New Orleans, the other finalists for the 2018 game.

Though Minneapolis' two competitors have been strong Super Bowl hosts -- and New Orleans is pushing for the game as part of its tricentennial celebration -- recent history suggests the NFL would reward the Twin Cities for building the Vikings' new stadium. Three of the last four Super Bowls (Rickey Jackson Authentic Jersey)have been played in new stadiums, with Super Bowl L scheduled for the San Francisco 49ers' new home in 2016. The league has been pushing to spread Super Bowls around, and when its final decision comes down in May, Minneapolis seems like a good bet to be awarded its first Super Bowl in 26 years.

Indianapolis and New Orleans have already approved tax breaks for the NFL as part of their bids, and the bet here is that Minnesota will, too. The state has spent the better part of the past decade funneling public money to sports stadiums, and the prospect of major events like Super Bowls and Final Fours was a large piece of the pitch for the Vikings stadium. There's a valid and compelling argument to be made that governments can fund much more worthwhile enterprises than for-profit entertainment businesses, but it's a bit difficult to make that argument after shelling out more than $500 million of taxpayer money for such businesses in less than a decade -- especially when the state just got done handing tax breaks back to its citizens a year after a tax hike created a $1.2 billion budget surplus. It's also reasonable to question how real and long-lasting the economic impact of a Super Bowl is Rickey Jackson Jerseys, but the idea of that same event was one of the plums of the new stadium when it was approved two years ago.