How long can people remain in a state of surprise? Ever since – at enormous student and taxpayer expense – the University of Minnesota’s new football stadium opened in 2009, every dumbass prediction about its success has been ground into dust. Read UD‘s posts about it. (Scroll down.)
As desperation sets in (there are loans to pay off!) bribery and coercion have begun.
Minnesota offered student packages for men’s hockey and men’s basketball tickets — but only if students also bought slower-selling football tickets. But after students and Gov. Mark Dayton earlier this month complained — the governor said he was “appalled” by the practice — the school adjusted its policy. Forty-two students were given a refund, the school said.
Why wasn’t the governor (he wasn’t governor then, but he was a citizen) appalled when the state went ahead and let the University of Minnesota take all that money and build a failed stadium – one that can’t even get the university’s students to attend games in any significant number? There were already, back then, dark omens that the university had tightened admissions standards to the point where a shocking number of admits didn’t give a shit about football. Why didn’t anyone heed the omens and roll back, say, literacy requirements?
October 22nd, 2014 at 1:35PM
The reason the Gov didn’t say anything about this monstrosity is because the people building it, and the Wall Street money palaces funding the construction, are the same people the Gov needs in order to become Gov. Political donations have to come from somewhere, and no one gets to the State Capital because of an ethical impulse. So, business as usual, yap about ticket sales, shut the hell up regarding the efficacy of the debt….