Uncovering the Dome

I was recently reading the Wikipedia entry on the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome to see if I could learn anything about the construction of its fabric roof I noticed one of the citations was to a book called Uncovering the Dome by none other than Minnesota's own state senator Amy Klobuchar. I thought, "Klobuchar wrote a book about the Dome?" Sure enough, she did... when she was 22. Her prize winning senior thesis at Yale was published in 1982 as an expose of Minnesota stadium politics. Her interest was in exploring how the funding and construction of the Metrodome served the public interest that made for some fascinating, and I must admit, very fun reading. The book is like a time capsule that contains some timeless truths about the ongoing controversies concerning public funding of sports stadiums. Klobuchar does not seem sympathetic to the idea, but she does retain an objectivity that is praiseworthy considering how volatile the issue can be. Those that are old enough to remember the much loved Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington will know that the thought of moving the Vikings and Twins to comforts of indoors was a travesty. No more mud covered linebackers or lazy summer days under the sun were to be had. Both of the team's owners felt the Minnesota weather was too harsh and unpredictable to allow their champions to endure. Playing outside in an outdated and corroding facility was simply uncouth for such up and coming franchises. Klobuchar shows some impressive writing skills as she clearly spells out the perennial problems of professional sports teams and their persistent demands for better and better facilities: "It is this 'contrived scarcity' -- this undersupply and excess demand-which serves as a backdrop to the contested issue of public subsidies for stadiums. To put it another way, there are more cities that want teams than there are teams for cities. Government leaders who either want to gain popularity by acquiring a franchise or are afraid of losing public support because a team abandons their community will make extremely accommodating financial offers, in the form of stadium subsidies, to coax million-dollar sports organizations to either remain in or move to their areas." This gives the sports team an unfair negotiating advantage. The cities they reside in must build a stadium to keep them around. If they don't they have the option of moving to a city that will build for them. The city that builds the stadium builds a permanent fixture. The team can move but the stadium has to stay, and it must be filled some other way or torn down by the people who live by it. So powerful is this advantage that even public opinion dead set against funding new facilities cannot persuade public officials from bending over backwards to accommodating the team's owners. The story of the Dome is a topsy-turvy tail of political maneuvering between Bloomington, St. Paul, and Minneapolis with all their quirks and idiosyncratic pride at stake. Minn