Before I get too far into this, I’m not a big football fan. But before you start thinking that it’s some decision on my part about being ‘better’ than football fans, or something like that, remember that Carl Sagan was a football fan.
When I say that I’m not a ‘big football fan’ I’m not saying that I dislike football, hate it, or have any form or animosity towards it. I like watching the occasional game, and I have a lot of friends who are fans of the sport.
My reason for not being a big football fan has to do with the fact that I am not the target market for the game, or for the drama surrounding the game. And in Minnesota right now, there is drama around the game, as well as on the field.
So far this season we have lost one game. If I were to predict the outcome of the season, it would probably be that we will loose another two, maybe three regular season games. I do expect that we will make it to the post season where we will win two or perhaps three games. I don’t happen to expect that we will make it to the Superbowl, nor do I expect that we will win if we do make it there. But who knows, the game ain’t over till it’s over.
Thus ends 2009. Which probably doesn’t help you with why I asked that question in the title of the post. So Allow me to pull my predicting cap on a bit more snuggly. we’ve got to start thinking about 2010. There will be a lot of talk and excitement through the spring and summer about Viking Football. Farve has to decide will he be healthy for the year? How did play go in 2009? Farve really wants to get to the Superbowl again, and take home another Superbowl ring. Hi’s contract is only through the 2010 season, so he’s only got this one more year to go.
And the season will go fairly well. Farve will play hard. But the team will have changed a bit. Will Peterson be able to sit out every other run? Will we have to trade away some receiver for a prospect who looks great on paper, but well, he’s really only received from quarterbacks who have lofted the ball to him, and he can’t handle the burning throws from Bret. It’s a little harder to predict a season away.
But that’s not where the problem lies. The problem is with 2011. Farve’s contract is up. I’m willing to bet that for 2011, Wilf is not really interested in throwing another 12 million dollars into Bret’s pocket. Even if we make it to the superbowl in the 2009 and 2010 seasons, 2011 does not look to me like a year with Farve on the team. In fact I’m reasonably certain that there will be a lot of turnover on the team, and the mix won’t be quite the same as we have now.
Why? Because the Mall of America Dome formerly known as the Humphry dome, has a contract with the Vikings to play through 2011. And the stadium is ‘showing it’s age. as they say. The kicker though is that there is no project in the works to provide a new home field for the Vikings in Minnesota.
Not one of the proposed stadium ideas has gotten the approval of the Minnesota senate, or the various cities it’s been proposed to. No one is talking about breaking ground for a new stadium. We’re in a ‘down economy’ at the moment, and no one wants to raise sales taxes again to cover the new stadium. Or increase property taxes, or have to deal with the traffic. Not here in Minnesota. Nope. Not here in Minnesota.
Now in LA on the other hand. You know in a state with an unemployment rate another 3-5% higher than here in Minnesota. A state that votes democrat nationally, but has a republican governor, who has just raised taxes. Now in the city of LA, they are building a stadium. Or will be shortly. They break ground in 2010. The first professional game is going to be played in 2012. What team will be playing there? Well according to the wikipedia article:
The National Football League is not planning on expanding and the developers of the new stadium stated on their website that their tenant will be an existing team "that needs to move because they cannot build a new stadium or financially they are not successful in their current market. We can not disclose which teams we are talking with."
As someone I work with asked: “I wonder who that could be?”
Oh the wikipedia article does list several other teams, and it’s possible that one of those other teams is in serious negotiations for moving, but I would like to point out a minor detail that isn’t being talked about much these days. No one is talking about proposing a new stadium in Minnesota any more.
They guy down the street from you? You know the guy who painted his mail box purple and replaced the flag with a gold ‘horn’? Yeah, him. He doesn’t need any convincing. A new mailbox only costs a few bucks. Or at least less than a quarter of what he spent on a tickets to a game this year.
Yep, one of those tickets that I can’t see myself affording.
I don’t expect that LA will have one weekend of regularly scheduled home games that are not played at their new stadium in 2012. None will be missed.
I also don’t expect that Minnesota will have a home football game in 2012. After all the lease at the dome will have expired, and well, I think you’ll find out that there are already serious plans for that property.
I don’t subscribe to the notion that having a football team is a significant draw for outstate football fans. Oh, there are some, and many are very dedicated fans, but I strongly suspect that the Mall of America brings in more tourists from around the world for one and two day tours on a Monday and Tuesday than there are people coming into the twin cities for a game of the Vikings against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
And while LA is going to reap short term wins for jobs in building the new stadium, I would point out that a significant percentage of the people who built the new Twins stadium were not people who were living here 6 months before they started doing their job, and those same people will be gone long before the Twins play their season opener this next year.
If building a stadium is great news for the community, and is going to result in lots of new construction, you should see it by going to a high spot looking over downtown Minneapolis and counting tower cranes. Perhaps we will see them in the next few months. I’m not expecting to though. Are you?
The Vikings are about as unlikely to be in the state of Minnesota in 3 years as the Minneapolis Lakers are. Actually, I think less likely. The Lakers might end up visiting to play against the Timberwolves. But there are not going to be any teams for the Vikings to play against for a long time. In fact I would not be surprised if the team we call the Vikings are called something else entirely. The LA Vikings does not sound like a team name that rolls off the tongue. But perhaps it is a requirement that the team name remains the same other than the city or state portions of the name. I don’t know. After all the Minnesota Northstars became the Dallas Stars, which was a partial change in name.
That makes the ‘local’ team the Green Bay Packers. Of which there is no shortage of fans in Minneapolis. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me however if the next closest team became the new Fan Favorite, which would be the Chicago Bears. I suppose there will be a few people who will continue to follow the team formerly known as the Minnesota Vikings, but who knows.
In any case, enjoy. I’ll still be contending with traffic to get to and from work, though it will probably be a combination of normal rush hour traffic, and the odd Wolves game. Who knows.
Who do you expect to be following in 2012?
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