It all hinges on whether the people of Minnesota will be suckers and pay for a new stadium for billionaire owner Zygi Wilf. As a Packer fan this gives me no joy. I hate the Vikings, but love the rivalry. In fact I grew up right on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border near Minneapolis, so while we were Wisconsinites, all of our news and television was Vikings dominated. Loyalties in the town, even in my family, were split.
If the Vikings were to move I wonder if they would join the NFC East and then the St. Louis Rams would join the NFC North? Seems weird, but logical, of course.
I hope the Vikings stay put. I hate it when NFL teams move from one city to another, especially over stadium complaints by billionaire owners. LA should get a team at some point, but it should be an expansion team, not some other town’s team.
I’d like it. Put the Vikings in the NFC West and move the Rams to the NFC North. Makes an easier travel schedule for the NFC West and St. Louis fits geographically into the NFC North.
I really wish local governments would get together and decide, as a unit, that tax dollars will not be spent for pro sports stadiums. If the teams want a stadium, let them build it…and pay for it themselves.
Ah … the millionaire extortion game begins: Build me a new stadium or I’ll move your beloved team to a city that will love it more.
Since tax dollars would almost certainly be required to build a new stadium in the Twin Cities metro area, I don’t see us building Zygi a new playground.
But … seeing as the rabid “no new taxes” crowd doesn’t find THESE types of taxes objectionable (“It’s for the VIKINGS!”), it may happen.
I think the NFL likes having Los Angeles without an NFL team so the other owners can use the threat of moving there to get a new stadium in their current city. Woody Johnson of the New Jersey Jets made that threat a few years ago.
But I’m sure the rabid “more taxes please” crowd will fully endorse these extortions. Advice to Vikings fans if they move: buy a large screen tv and watch in your living room.
It would be pretty amusing to me as a Bears fan for a season or two (however long it takes them to realign). The L.A. Vikings home games against the Bears and Packers - and to a lesser extent, the Lions - would be more like home games for the visiting team than for the Vikings. We have a lot of midwestern transplants out here.
That actually makes me wonder - what would the reaction of the Vikings fans who live out here be like? Would they be excited to have their team nearby, or would they feel betrayed that the team left their “native” land? I kind of think that I’d hate it if this were the Bears, which I acknowledge is kind of hypocritical seeing as I relocated here myself years ago.
The extortion is bad enough, but then when they get the stadium they practically treat it as disposable. The Metrodome isn’t even 30 years old; and how many other stadiums from that era have been abandoned and demolished?
So go ahead, build a palace for these millionaires. Once it’s not bright and shiny anymore, they’ll demand an even better palace.
LA has never had a problem supporting a team. The people simply refused to fund a new stadium, end of story. If LA is now willing to fund a stadium, or if private money is making it happen, the only negative to being in LA is gone.
The Colts have actually now been in Indy longer than they were in Baltimore. That wasn’t their original home, either; they were the Dallas Texans before that.
Well kinda… But if you are going to include that muddy ancestry why not go all the way and include their various other incarnations as well:
The Dayton Triangles → The Brooklyn Dodgers → The Brooklyn Tigers who merged with The Boston Yanks to form The Undisclosed Location Yanks → New York Yankees → Dallas Texans where the ownership eventually merged in 1953 with the remains of The Miami Seahawks → The 1947-50 Baltimore Colts.
I think it would most certainly have to be private money. How the hell can they justify raiding the LA and California public exchequer for a stadium when the whole damned state’s on the verge of being repossessed?
Simmons had a interesting Podcast with one of the principles of a group trying to build a football stadium in LA. The gist of their business proposal is that they’ll package the stadium construction with a complete revamping of the LA convention center and a couple other municipal works. The upshot being that it’s in the cities best interest to fund the project locally based on the revenue that a year-round facility would generate. Currently LA is essentially a dead stick when it comes to the crazy lucrative convention business and it would create a lot of jobs.
What proportion will be public money and what will be private wasn’t discussed, but he couched the discussion in a way that obviously was intended to make getting some public money a possibility. The impact of LA Live and the Staples Center on downtown LA is a pretty strong marketing tool and could pretty easily swap some public opinion on the subject.
It’s worth pointing out that Woody’s new stadium wasn’t funded with taxpayer dollars. Sure the cost was defrayed by splitting the bill with the Giants, but it still ended up costing like $800m each.
Most of them, but in fairness 30 years ago they didn’t build luxury boxes. A new stadium can legitimately bring in far more revenue than a 30-year old one, so it’s not like they want a new stadium just for the sake of having one.