To some extent I hear you. On the flip side, I just have a hard time spending boatloads of taxpayer money to build a stadium for a franchise that has never won a super bowl and has always ultimately turned out to be a major disappointment.
As far as I’m concerned CA can have them. Go ahead and call me short-sighted, but I really don’t see the economy doing better with them here and MN going deeper into the red vs. without them here and not generating whatever revenue they supposedly did. I haven’t been to a stadium to watch anything in so long I can’t remember it. It’s just too damned expensive! A cheap night out for two to go to a sporting event, concert/show is easily 150 - 200 bucks all things considered. That is, unless you buy the worst seats possible and take the bus there and back, then it’s still easily 100 bucks without anything besides tickets.
Too much money for too little return in most cases and that’s exempting the hassle of it all.
The time for the Vikings to grasp what could have been a stellar future was then, but Mike sold the team, the fans, and the state out for his own personal gain. The handwriting was on the wall, but even the NFL was involved so nothing could have stopped it from happening.
The NFL had rules that someone had to have a majority ownership of a team, but allowed Lynn to set up a ten member ownership group as long as he was the one with the last word. Well shortly afterwords members began selling their portions and the new owners never agreed to the old deal and the NFL refused to step in to enforce the agreement they had with Lynn.
Thus many bad decisions were made as would be the case whenever you have 10 individuals trying to do what they want to do. For those who want to know the truth, history now shows us that Mike Lynn killed what could have been one of the best franchises in the NFL in the '80's when he continually made bad decision after bad decision to appease ten men who could never even agree how much to pay a great player to keep them.
Anymore, I root for the name of the team, not the player, not the owner,and not the city or state. Move, change the players or ownership and I will still pay somewhat attention. Drop the name Vikings, and I will walk away to never look back again, because it is the Vikings that turn my head, not the NFL or any other team anymore.
Even at that I have become somewhat of a fair weather fan through the last few years. I am also convinced that my desire to put up with lazy socialist millionaires demanding more for less will weigh heavy on my mind when it comes time to allocating my entertainment time in the future.
This was the first year since 1996 that I did not purchase the NFL ticket which living in California was the only way to see the Vikings play usually anyway. Even the fact that I have Direct TV with TIVO, means that I never watch a game live anymore, so it's easy for me to fast forward and skip the talking heads. What that does is remove my heart a little farther from a sport that was once my religion.
I realized my devotion to the NFL was bordering on a idle worship back around 2001 after 911. Since then I have drastically revised my priorities to reflect Him who truly means everything. So now I pay attention more with a jaundiced eye that allows me to be more critical and honest then I used to be.
OV (Chuck Wolk)