That’s Vancouver’s BC Place stadium. That’s the stadium that used for the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, for the BC Lions CFL football team, for the Vancouver Whitecaps MLS team, and for the largest concert tours in the world, including Taylor Swift & Jay Z + Justin Timberlake. This is a first class venue both inside and out, both day and night.

And, the truly innovative part of it is that they managed to build a world class venue for half the price Minnesota is spending to tear down the Metrodome to build a slightly larger stadium on the same footprint. Vancouver decided to be take a far cheaper and greener approach when they came to the conclusion that their Metrodome-equivalent stadium was due for an upgrade before the Olympics.

They managed to add better seats, better concessions a retractable roof, open the stadium up with more natural light, keep the football team playing in the stadium by doing the upgrades during off-seasons, and did it on half the budget being used to tear down and rebuild a stadium in Minneapolis. If Minnesota had taken a similar approach there wouldn’t have been a need to come up with a creative way to finance the stadium through questionable gambling exploitation tactics.

Functional world-class cities aren’t judged by the amount of taxpayer money they can spend to subsidize private corporations. If they can solve a problem with less money, they do. That’s good government. New York spent nearly nothing on the NFL stadium that’s shared by two teams in their market. Los Angeles profits from not having an NFL team draining their city’s tax base. Then there’s Cincinnati, where NFL subsidies have become a higher budget priority than local hospitals. It’s no wonder that they’ve lost 5% of the county’s population over the life of the current stadium. People with marketable skills have options.

@Rat seemed to think I was referring to the ballpark’s architecture, but that was a reference to the company who slapped their logo all over the ballpark, and seems to expect us to use their brand every time we talk about the publicly financed stadium they sponsored.

Here’s my justification for doing this from the comments of the previous post:

The private business who’s name is on the stadium didn’t put money into building the stadium, and the money they pay goes 100% to the single family rather than split among those who put money into building the stadium.

Mr Magoo put it more bluntly:

Walmart didn’t demand massive subsidies for a downtown Mpls HQ and Walmart didn’t demand massive taxpayer subsidies for three Mpls stadiums that will serve as Target billboards so shoppers can be reminded where they should buy junk food and cheap plastic shit from China.

That sums it up pretty well. When the public heavily subsidizes stadiums for the private owners private sports teams, then the private businesses sells naming rights to the public stadiums, I feel no obligation be a word of mouth marketer for the private sponsor or the private sports team.

As I understand it, many private sports businesses manage to negotiate lucrative deals with corporate welfare enabling legislators, so don’t even need to pay taxes on naming rights. And, I assume that sponsors take a tax deduction on the naming right.

This isn’t good government or corporate behavior, so I choose to avoid enabling it.

It’s possible that Norm Coleman might consider me to be a grinch for not speaking in coal burning power company terms when describing the arena he forced taxpayers to subsidize and subsidize and subsidize in St Paul. Oh well.

I’d consider making an exception for cases where the naming rights covered the public’s share, but what I’m really looking for are corporations who have the decency to work out deals to sponsor stadiums so the public doesn’t need to get involved in stadium financing. When one of our local big box retailers decides to lobby for subsidies from the state, subsidies from the city, subsidies from the county, and to exploit gamblers in order to build stadiums they can slap their names on – with the revenues going to the private owners or the pro sports teams – I lose respect for the big box retailer. Their corporate behavior is not in the public’s best interest.

Call him on it:

Then watch St Paul’s former mayor call me a grinch for opposing corporate welfare for the NHL:

Perhaps pointing out that Norm Coleman used the public’s money to subsidize his private entertainment went too far?

Apparently it was for @normcoleman because that’s when he blocked me.

I imagine that politicians like Norm Coleman would prefer that taxpayers forgot about the corporate welfare they gave away. Yes, we have the Wild. We’re paying for them every day. Even when they don’t make the playoffs. Even when they’re on strike. Even when there’s a lockout.

Money that taxpayers continue to pay to subsidize a private business that competes for entertainment dollars against other locally owned businesses that don’t receive hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies. If Norm Coleman had walked down Payne Ave as mayor and asked people what the city could do to make their lives better, subsidizing the NHL probably wouldn’t have been at the top of the list. Different priorities.

Perhaps Coleman wouldn’t be taking credit on Twitter on a Saturday night in 2013 for having made the streets safer or schools better on the East Side of St Paul in the year 2000, but that’s the kind of good government stuff we need more of from our politicians.

Maybe it makes me a fun-hater to think that NHL fans are perfectly capable of using their own money to pay for their own entertainment rather than rely upon corporate welfare with the help of Norm Coleman? The only thing better than paying full price to watch Derek Boogaard contract CTE is to pay a taxpayer subsidized price to watch Derek Boogaard contract CTE, eh?

“I believe it is sound, reliable, and sufficient to finance the state’s share of this project.

Anyone who says otherwise is speaking without my authorization and is seriously misrepresenting my position.

As Senator Sean Nienow has been saying on Twitter, Dayton owns this debacle. The above statement makes it pretty darn clear.

Dayton goes on:

Furthermore, everyone trying to dismantle this proposal, without offering a better one, is clearly trying to defeat the bill.

That’s a ridiculous statement.

First, it’s perfectly legitimate to try to defeat a bill that provides corporate Wilfare to an organization that doesn’t need it but simply wants it.

It’s legitimate to argue that it’s not the state’s job to subsidize the NFL.

It’s perfectly legitimate to argue that the Vikings, together with Vikings fans, could work together to come up with a private financing scheme if they really felt that a new stadium was worth the cost.

Second, it’s ridiculous statement because alternative financing proposals were offered. Many were proposed. Here are some examples:

Some called for the Vikings to chip in a far larger share.

Some called for paying for the stadium through taxes on sports related merchandise, tickets, and naming rights.

Some called for subsidizing the NFL by exploiting the state’s gamblers through slot machines at horse tracks.

And one offered to sell the current Metrodome to the Vikings for $1, then let them do whatever they’d like with it (Refurb? Tear down? That’s their business.)

But, all of those ideas were rejected by the legislators carrying the bills through the house and senate, who were clearly working with Governor Dayton to craft the bill.

This product is a best seller, yet has only five reviews. Two of the five reviews were 1-star, stating that the markers wash off in the first use. Another one said it takes two years for the markers to wear off. And two people loved it. A measuring cup without markers isn’t particularly useful, eh? With only 5 reviews, it’s hard to say whether the experiences of 60% of reviewers are the norm. An online competitor to target.com, Amazon.com, offers a comparable product from Pyrex that has an average of 4.5 stars and 387 reviews. Personally, I would have more confidence in purchasing the Pyrex product based on reviews alone. Yes, it’s $4 more expensive, but measuring cups last forever (unless the markers wear off).

But, when ordering stuff online, the cost isn’t just the cost but the cost plus tax and shipping. Inconveniently, Target.com doesn’t offer a fully loaded cost on their property description pages, or hint at what shipping may be, or how one may be able to avoid shipping costs. Instead, I had to start the checkout process to figure out what it would cost to purchase this item:

Notice on the right where it says:

Shipping: not yet calculated
Tax: not yet calculated

As in, we demand that you tell us who you are, where you live, and your email address before we’ll tell you what it would cost to purchase something from us.

I complied, assuming that once Target.com knew my address they’d be able to calculate relevant taxes and shipping. But, I was wrong:

Here I am at the checkout screen and Target still hasn’t told me what I’ll be charged to purchase this item. They did accurately calculate the 7.775% sales tax rate I’d need to pay to subsidize the Vikings stadium, but didn’t tell me what it would cost to ship the product to my door.

I chose PayPal for checkout because I figured PayPal would probably give me an option to see the full price before Target charged me their mystery figure. Here’s what I found out:

The mystery shipping cost for the $5.54 item: $6.72. That hurts.

What’s even more strange about this is the sale taxes more than doubled from 7.775% to 17.148%. That makes no sense to me. Anyone know what that’s all about?

Between best seller products on a major retail site having only 5 reviews, 60% of reviews of a best seller product being negative, no transparency on shipping or tax before checkout, and jumping sales tax prices, it’s tough to have much confidence in the site.

Now, compare that to Amazon. Here’s Amazon’s most popular 1-quart glass measuring cup:

It’s $3.95 more expensive than Target’s best selling 1-quart glass measuring cup. But:

It has 22 images while Target offers one. Perhaps Target’s customers could benefit from a few pictures of measuring cups with missing lines so they could make more informed decisions?

Amazon’s 1-quart measuring cup has been reviewed 387 times with an average review of 4.5 stars:

Target’s reviews appear to be sorted by date, while Amazon’s are sorted by usefulness based on up/down votes from other Amazon users. The top review of this 1-quart measuring cup has received 154/162 useful votes. It’s more than 500 words long. In a nutshell, it says that it’s a nice measuring cup but not as nice as they used to be.

Amazon makes it clear that you can get this shipped for free if you’re willing to spend at least $25:

They also show that a 3rd party seller is willing to sell this product for $10.95 with free shipping.

Amazon also makes their upsell to Amazon Prime membership ($79 annual fee for free 2-day shipping on most purchases, plus unlimited movie streaming and other stuff) impossible to miss.

I skipped the Prime membership (I’m a Prime member, but I logged out for this demonstration) and took a look at my shopping cart. It turns out that Amazon lets me calculate the shipping/total cost for purchasing this item before I tell Amazon who I am:

A rational person wouldn’t spend $15.98 or $13.21 with shipping on a measuring cup. Especially when Amazon makes it blatantly clear that you’ll get nearly half off on the next $15 worth of stuff you add to the cart to round up to $25 and avoid shipping.

Target does offer free shipping to certain customers, and a 5% discount. All you have to do is ding your credit applying for their credit card, which carried a 22.9% APR:

Amazon also offers a credit card with a lower APR, and points for purchases not only at Amazon, but for anything purchased with the card including bonus points for certain popular categories like gas stations, restaurants, and drug stores.

And, if we’re comparing shipping based on membership, Target’s RedCard users are eligible for free Standard Shipping (3-5 days) while Amazon Prime members ($79 annual fee) receive free 2 day shipping. If I order something on a Tuesday night and it may not show up until the following Monday, it may be free but it’s not exactly awesome compared to having it before the weekend for free.

So, it looks like Target’s a bit behind on reviews, reviews of reviews, transparency on shipping, calculating sales tax, free shipping offers, delivery speed for free shipping offers, and benefits offered to members.

Personally, I think shipping policies can make or break online retailers. If e-commerce sites can’t satisfy the:

- I need something for a birthday party this weekend
- I plan to cook something this weekend
- I’m running low on diapers
- Christmas is almost here

crowds with cost-effective, reliable shipping, there are companies that do it on a daily basis and are winning a lot of loyalty through shipping that traditional marketing can’t touch.