Although in the last 24 hours Viking fans in Minnesota went from getting damn near ready to watch the ship sail away to Los Angeles, to now having them stay even being more of a possibility, the more I think about it the more the move to Los Angeles would make sense. Now I do have to say, as I said many times on Sports Talk 920, I love to hate me some Vikings and for that reason I don't want to see them move. However there are a lot of reasons that the move makes a perfect sense for both cities.
First of the Minnesota Vikings have been trying to get a new stadium built for about 10 years now, since the Metrodome is turning into a dump. Every time they have proposed a bill to build a new stadium it has been turned down. It seems to me that although I think a lot of Vikings fans want a new stadium, they are not ready and not die hard enough to take the hit to build a new venue. Their last hope is that the gaming revenue idea works out, and this isn't a new idea for them, I hope that will pan out for them. The other reason is that like I said before they are not as die hard enough to keep the revenue coming in. Even though they have "sold out" every game since 1997, a lot of games needed extensions or companies to buy the remaining tickets to avoid a blackout. I almost forgot to mention back in Jan 2009 they needed several extensions to sellout their Wildcard game against the Eagles. Also after their magical 2009 season, and narrow miss of the Super Bowl, the Vikings needed help selling tickets by packaging together. Say if you wanted to buy a ticket for the game vs. the Green Bay Packers, you would also have to bundle that for games vs. the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills. Last thing I will mention about their sellouts is that say when they played the Green Bay Packers, especially when they were mediocre to bad, the Metrodome turned into LambeauDome, selling a lot of seats to the opposing team.
In 2010 according to Forbes.com the Vikings ranked 30th in revenue and were ranked 31st in net revenue. A move to Los Angeles, the second biggest market in the United States, would help them a ton more than building a new stadium in Minnesota would be. Los Angeles has been hungry for another NFL team after they lost both the Rams and the Raiders back in 1995. I think that if the Vikings would move to LA it would be wiser for them rather than getting the Chargers or even the Rams back in town. The Vikings brand and decent winning ways would bring a fresh perspective to fans in SoCal. Even if they would need to use a lot of the sames tricks to sellout their games I think it would be easier to get their fairweahterer's out of the woodshed, and if that failed, easier for division rival fans would more than likely rather travel to see their team play in LA than they would in Minnesota even with a new stadium in the land of lakes.
My prediction would be that if the Vikings did make the move to Los Angeles, Minnesota would be in line to get another team when they are ready to build a new stadium. If the moved happened the LA Vikings would move to the NFC West with the St Louis Rams leaving that division and making the switch to the NFC North. With the same problems in St. Louis, when the time came, they would make the move into the new Minnesota stadium. I know it wouldn't be their semi beloved Vikings, but I guess you guys would get a NFL team back in the state.
Regardless of how much the Viking deserve to move to LA, I would hate to see it, and thankfully due to the gaming money revenue there seems to be a brighter light that the team I love to hate will stay in the state were I would like to hate them more.
-Goody
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