Here are three reasons the proposed pro football stadium in Arden Hills will fail in the coming legislative session:

1. The stadium being proposed is not in Minneapolis.

They might be called the Minnesota Vikings, but the team has a 30-year relationship with the state’s largest city. A well-managed NFL team courts a good relationship with its city. Examples abound:

Lucas Oil Stadium opened in 2008 in Indianapolis. CenturyLink Field opened in 2002 in Seattle. Ford Field opened in 2002 in Detroit.

Not in the suburbs, but in the city themselves.

The list goes on: Pittsburgh, 2001; Denver, 2001; Houston, 2002; Cincinnati, 2000; Cleveland, 1999; Nashville, 1999; Tampa, 1998; Jacksonville, 1995; Charlotte, 1996; Atlanta, 1992.

And stadiums in Chicago and Green Bay were refurbished and expanded, rather than teams abandoning their city, back in 2003.

Sure, there are exceptions, such as Dallas, Boston and New York, but the general consensus among NFL owners clearly is this: Embrace your city.

Minneapolitans have been there for the Vikings, in terms of labor, fans and business. The mayor and the council want them to stay in the city. However, the Vikings want to skip town.

Hurt feelings create votes in the Legislature against the Arden Hills proposal.

2. The stadium location lacks the transportation infrastructure.

The former Army dump in Arden Hills surely needs to be cleaned up, but that’s another issue. There just isn’t the transportation grid to bring 80,000 people to this northern suburb. Besides, common sense says people from southern Minnesota don’t want to drive to northern suburbs, just as anyone from northern Minnesota would dislike driving to southern suburbs.

Minneapolis is the state’s gathering place, and it has two sites that have the support for transportation. The Metrodome already is supported by highways, bus routes, commuter rail and even bike paths. Tearing it down and building a new stadium there would be the ideal logistics decision. The other site is the county’s farmers market, not far from where Target Field exists. There would be natural commercial benefits to having the baseball and football stadiums near each other. Many pro-sports cities have gone this route.

Besides, the price tag of a Minneapolis stadium would be less than one in Arden Hills, by all reasonable estimates.

A lack of a viable transportation systems creates votes in the Legislature against the Arden Hills proposal.

3. The best means to fund a stadium has been taken off the table.

This newspaper, the governor and just about everyone opposes spending funds from the state’s general fund. That’s a no-brainer.

However, if there must be a public portion of the stadium, it ought to be funded just like Target Field and the Metrodome were — a local tax. Wherever the stadium is benefits from it the most. Throwing in a few other options, such as a tax on sports products, can work, too.

But near Halloween, state leaders declared sales taxes to be off the table, leaving little else besides gambling as a primary funding stream. It seems in poor taste to fund a sports stadium with gambling. Pro sports and gambling don’t mix well. Leave that to Las Vegas. What legislator who wants to garner votes would favor expanding gambling in Minnesota in the name of a pro sports stadium?

Failure by the left and right to agree on a public funding mechanism creates votes in the Legislature against the Arden Hills proposal.

Conclusion: It would be politically wise for the commercial developers who own the Vikings — and thus drool over the commercial possibilities of the Arden Hills site — to stop course now, court Minneapolis and together roll out a sensible, local-tax deal. They should see how other teams received stadiums and follow that general model. And be flexible.

That is, if they want public funding.

Frankly, the best option would be if the billionaire owners and the businesses that befriend the NFL the most would pay the full price tag, just like Jerry Jones did in Dallas. Then owners could build in the suburbs all they want. The public portion only would be donating the contaminated land in Arden Hills that used to be an Army dump and improving the transportation infrastructure.