Here are what opponents of a professional football stadium say: Gambling revenue is no way to fund the public share of a stadium. The city of Minneapolis will contribute funds to a stadium without a vote of the people. The Minnesota Vikings and the NFL have not contributed enough money. The state economy is too tight to build lavish sports palaces.

Reasons to come out against a professional football stadium are many — and we agree with some of those reasons — but more than anything we are glad the Legislature found a compromise and passed a stadium bill to send to the governor. It clearly was what the people of Minnesota wanted this session, and voters appear happy to have seen Democrats and Republicans work together on something for once.

House Speaker Kurt Zellers deserves special praise for scheduling a floor vote on a matter he opposes. There is a term for that sort of behavior in politics. It’s called statesmanship.

Gov. Mark Dayton also deserves kudos for championing a stadium at considerable political risk. That’s called leadership.

Drive around Albert Lea or many cities in the Land of 10,000 Lakes when the Vikings are on television, and it is easy to see the draw this team — above all other teams in the state — has on Minnesotans. Whether the purple and gold are having a winning or losing season, fewer people are at the stores, in the parks or just out and about. Game time is actually a great time to run errands for people who don’t follow pro football.

The Nielsen Sports Media Index says the Minnesota Vikings are sixth most-popular team in the 32-team league. Other team owners and managers drool over the numbers the Vikes get for its market size. Let the Jacksonville Jaguars, which have the least popularity, move to Los Angeles. Or perhaps the NFL can expand into the L.A. market. Moving the Vikings would have harmed all NFL teams and fans, especially rivals in the highly successful Black and Blue Division (the Bears are fourth, Packers fifth, Lions 26th).

Sports stadiums sure get criticism, and often deservedly so, but the long-held argument that the state didn’t need to kick in a share at all was off the mark. Considering the state often contributes to many other public-private deals with less statewide fanfare, from the shiny Guthrie Theater to funding ways to create technology that better manages medical records to tax incentives for attracting companies and to endless other examples, it stands to reason the state has justification for funding a share of this quality-of-life matter, too. It was the means by which the funding happened that was at issue, not funding in general. Obviously, the stadium will get used for more purposes than pro football games.

The stadium bill has cleared the Legislature and is headed to Gov. Mark Dayton, who is expected to sign the measure. Many newspaper editorials are quick to criticize lawmakers but slow to praise. This time, we felt praise was in order.