Minneapolis Super Bowl may seek more tax breaks
Published 10:09 am Thursday, May 22, 2014
ST. PAUL — Gov. Mark Dayton and other officials said Wednesday that they’ll probably ask the Legislature for more tax breaks to sweeten the 2018 Super Bowl for fans now that the NFL has awarded the big game to Minneapolis.
Dayton and members of the city’s bid committee held a news conference Wednesday to celebrate the affirmation a day after the NFL chose Minneapolis largely because of the $1 billion stadium being built where the Metrodome used to stand. He said the state has not promised any public money apart from a sales tax exemption for Super Bowl tickets that remains on the books from when Minnesota hosted it in 1992.
“There’s no other commitment, explicit or implicit, and that’s where it stands” Dayton said.
But Michele Kelm-Helgen, chair of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, said the organizers will sit down with NFL officials to discuss their needs. They’ll likely then ask the Legislature next year for sales tax exemptions for tickets to some of the other festivities such as the NFL Experience exhibition, she said, and ask private donors to cover the rest.
The NFL requires hosts to exempt Super Bowl players from state income taxes, but Kelm-Helgen said the governor and legislative leaders “weren’t comfortable” with supporting that. So the local corporate community will foot that bill, she said. There will be no exemption from lodging taxes for out-of-town fans, she said, but there may be discussion of an exemption for NFL staffers.
Dayton and Kelm-Helgen said they didn’t know how much revenue the state might forego because of any new tax breaks because they don’t know what they’ll be. They said the current ticket tax exemption is worth about $9 million.