As of Dec. 3, construction of the new Vikings Stadium has officially begun. The new $975,000,000 facility is scheduled to be finished in 2016. In Jan. 2014, the current stadium will be deflated and demolition will begin. For the next two years while construction takes place the Vikings are scheduled to play outdoors at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium.

After decades of planning, debating, and pleading, it was deemed appropriate to celebrate with an official groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday, Dec. 3. The digging took place in the lot next to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome which the Vikings have played at since 1982. About six hundred people were in attendance including politicians, adoring fans, and business leaders who watched as Governor Dayton, Wilf Peterson, and many others took turns digging up dirt and starting off the process.

However, not everyone is celebrating, especially leaders of conservative groups who earlier that day met with reporters to comment on the construction. The public is taking on about half of the cost for the elaborate stadium, roughly $350 million dollars.

“We are falling far short of the revenues. It is an utter failure. It is not working and the legislature had to come up with new ways to pay for this,” said Ted Lilly, president of Minnesota’s Taxpayers League via Kare 11. “The taxpayers of Minnesota are on the hook for $350 million, approximately, of this. The taxpayers of Hennepin County, of Minneapolis, have $150 million that they are paying and really the public is paying for half of this stadium and we are not treated like partners.”

It’s difficult to support a team that hasn’t had the best record either. “The Vikings have gone from a 10-6 playoff team in 2012 to a 3-8-1 mess this year. And the Wilfs, who built their fortune in a family real estate business, were ordered in September by a New Jersey court to pay $84.5 million to two former business partners the judge ruled they defrauded in a deal forged in the 1980s,” said Scott Theisen of KSTP.

In the end the groundbreaking is bittersweet. However, let’s hope for the best and be ready to support the Vikings this upcoming season.