Speed Gibson

Author and St. Paul Pioneer Press alumnus Mark Yost thinks the Vikings are leaving. Here's an edited transcript of his argument in the last segment of Taxpayer's League Live this past Saturday. This began after Mark and hosts David Strom and Margaret Martin reviewed the current political situation now that the Anoka proposal fell apart.

Locally, the picture is pretty bleak for the Vikings to get a new stadium. Here's what's going on in the NFL. The NFL was hit hard by Katrina, and here's why. They were all set to move New Orleans, the Saints, to Los Angeles. The Saints were at the end of their lease at the Superdome, the fans were not that great, everything was all set. And the NFL wants nothing more than to have a team in the number two market in the country.

Well, they can't move the Saints. It would be a public relations nightmare. It would look like they were abandoning the city. They don't want to award an expansion franchise because it would create an odd number of teams which screws up scheduling. So they're looking for a team to move, and the team that is the most unhappy with their current stadium situation is the Vikings.

"Ziggy" doesn't have any roots here. So I seriously believe that you will see the Vikings probably move in the next two to three years. It would be a great deal for "Ziggy." The League will pay a vast majority of the moving costs. The League is going to give them low interest loans to build a new facility in Los Angeles.

If you look around the League, and you stick to this theory that they don't want an expansion franchise, they want somebody to move, the Vikings are the team to move.