Red Flags Thrown on Vikings Stadium.

Ever since the Minnesota Legislature approved a bill that would provide financing for a new Minnesota Vikings football stadium in Minneapolis, we've heard plenty of talk about the plans that have been drawn up to surround it with plazas, office space, commerce and parking lots.  That is, everything the Metrodome never had.

The Glass Palace, as we like to call it, is going to cost an estimated $975 million (barring construction delays, of course).  The state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis is footing the bill for half the amount, with the Vikings contributing the other half.

Into this forecast comes a few storm clouds.  The state had been hoping to fund the stadium partly through electronic pulltabs and bingo games.  But that hasn't worked out very well, so they've fallen back on the old standbys of taxing smokers by the cigarette pack and charging more by the drink in Minneapolis.

The Vikings?  Despite assurances by owner Zygi Wilf and the National Football League that they're able to hold up their end of the bargain, a red flag has been thrown at the real estate mogul by a New Jersey judge.  In a case involving a partnership deal gone wrong that's lasted two decades, justice Deanna Wilson laid into the Wilfs for (among other things) committing fraud, breaching their contract, and violating her state's racketeering laws.

The Wilfs?  Shakedown artists?  Who knew?  Certainly not Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, who professed shock at the judge's ruling and vowed to keep a close eye on the Wilfs' business dealings from now on, though the stadium has nothing to do with the real estate deal.  Other legislators, most of whom opposed the stadium in the first place, are calling for the state to walk away from the deal, or at least postpone it until all the facts are in.  So how come it took them until now to figure this out, weeks before construction is set to begin?

Minnesotans are naturally suspicious of business people who come in from somewhere else, promising big things and delivering little, as if they're hayseeds to be taken advantage of (though to be fair, there have been some native-born moguls who've done the same thing).  We don't know if the New Jersey-based Wilfs are anything like that, or what's going to happen if this proves to be the monkey wrench that scuttles the stadium and clouds the future of pro football in Minnesota.  But we do know this, and it's the one thing every legal expert reminds you to do upon entering into an agreement:

Always read the fine print.