Might Target Stadium be next?

I'm still rather undecided about the possibilities for a new Vikings stadium. Honestly, I don't like the idea of my taxes going up; which of course they will regardless of where it's built (unless of course, the Vikes come up with a county partnership like the Twins did).

Lately, there has been more and more chatter about the possibility of building a new Vikings stadium just west of Target Field. If you know where Mary's Place is, just off of 7th Street, that's where the Vikings are looking to set up camp. I don't like the idea of making Mary Jo Copeland relocate. I so appreciate the work she does for the community; and making her move to make way for a new sports palace, in my mind, is wrong.

Then, there would be the issue of naming rights for the new place. Should it be Target Stadium? You'd have Target Field, Target Center and Target Stadium. In all likelihood, that will not happen.

Here's what I think will play out: as much as I don't like it, the Vikings end up with the Mary's Place property. Target Corp. will back out of the Target Center naming rights deal, which is set to expire in June. Target Corp. having its name on a shiny, new, 72,000-seat stadium is more appealing than a renewing on a 21-year-old basketball arena.

If in fact, the Vikings do end up with that property, the new naming rights deal with Target will occur almost overnight. It's much easier for the Vikings to sell season tickets, suites, advertising and so forth to "Target Stadium" than it is to "New Minneapolis Stadium, future home of the Minnesota Vikings, title sponsor pending."

Think about what Farmers Insurance did. They inked a naming-rights deal with the yet-to-be-built, yet-to-be-groundbroken stadium in LA. LA doesn't even have a team yet, but they have a name for the new stadium. It's really a marketing thing.

Rumors are also circulating that the Vikings are soon to announce their plan to the state Legislature. We shall see what happens over the next few months.

What are the Vikings to do?

Hopefully we've all had a chance to relatively recover from the worst snowstorm in almost 20 years. And, the biggest casualty of the storm seems to be the Metrodome and the Teflon-coated fiberglass roof.

This has happened before. A lot. The dome deflated shortly after crews inflated it for the first time while the stadium was under construction. In 1982, a snowstorm took the dome down again. In 1986, a severe thunder/wind storm tore a hole in the roof, leaking rain and wind on to fans watching a Twins game (I remember the news reports from that day).

Oddly enough, the roof never caved in under the 28 inches of snow left by the Halloween blizzard of 1991. Of course, back then, the Dome wasn't even ten years old. Now, almost to its 30th birthday, it might be time to do something about it. And, this may have been the motivation needed for the Legislature to finally push a bill through.

Click the title of this post to go to an article I wrote (in fun, of course) about what could be done about the Dome.

Pepsi, Snickers, Vikings?

The Vikings merchandising department is trying something different: installing a vending machine at the Mall of America.

Interesting concept, to use something that most people associate with pop and candy to sell team merchandise. Of course, it isn't unusual either. The Minnesota State Lottery for instance has vending machines around the Twin Cities for its scratch-off tickets.

The Minneapolis Business Journal says that the team is doing it to better track automated merchandise sales. It is a first-of-its-kind merchandising ploy in the NFL, and if it is successful here, could be a model for other markets.

Best Buy also has used vending machines to sell Apple products, like the iPod.

But, if you want to go buy a Favre jersey, wouldn't you rather see it in person to check out the size and color, rather than have it dispensed to you from a vending machine?

The team however, believes that it is a "viable and economic" means of selling merchandise with the purple and gold on it.

We shall see.

A Double-Shot Part II

For the second half of my post today, there is another sports story that might need a bit of PR to convince some people that it is a good thing: yesterday, the National Football League (NFL) announced the 2014 installment of the Super Bowl will be held in (drum roll please)...East Rutherford, New Jersey.

This is a first for the NFL. Cold-weather cities do not get awarded the sports world's finest prize very often. Cold-weather cities that do get awarded the Super Bowl have domes. Minneapolis hosted in 1992. Detroit hosted in 1982 and 2006. Indianapolis will host in 2012. As I understand NFL bylaws, if cities bidding for the Super Bowl have an average temperature below 50 degrees in February, the city must have a domed stadium.

New York was considered to host the 2002 Super Bowl, as a good-will gesture after 9/11, but the game went on as planned in New Orleans at the Superdome.

This is an unprecedented move, but, now that New Jersey has actually been awarded the game, who's to say that Chicago, Buffalo or even Green Bay can't bid on the Super Bowl in the future? Still, with tickets topping $1,000 apiece last year in Miami, if ticket prices stay at that level, ticket buyers are going to need some serious convincing that this is a good idea, in a city whos average temperature in February ranges from 25-40 degrees.

The National Hockey League (NHL) the last few years has played an outdoor game, usually on January 1. This annual event, known as the Winter Classic, has been very well received by fans. Chicago, Buffalo and Boston have hosted the Winter Classic. I've sometimes referred to it as the "cold-weather Super Bowl," as it would be unusual to see the event in Dallas or Atlanta.

Is it possible that New Jersey could be a trend-setter, and open up an opportunity for other cold-weather cities to host America's favorite football game? If all goes well, and it is well received by fans, can Seattle, Foxboro or Baltimore have as good of a chance of hosting a Super Bowl as Atlanta, Phoenix or Houston?

Nonetheless, a Super Bowl in New Jersey will need lots of PR behind it, for a game that usually is played in sunshine and 70+ degree weather (except for Super Bowl XLI in Miami, when it rained for four hours straight).

A Super Bowl in New Jersey, a good idea? I need some convincing, too.

Thanks for reading. Click "A Double-Shot Part II" for a USA Today article about the Super Bowl in 2014.

Too many sports teams?

I read the Twin Cities Business Journal on a regular basis, and this morning, I read an article that caught my attention; apparently, the Twin Cities has too many professional sports teams.

The study was conducted by Portfolio.com, and they tested 82 markets to determine the financial capacity of cities in both the United States and Canada to support professional sports. The professional sports they studied are teams in baseball, football, basketball, football and soccer.

Here in the Twin Cities, we have a Major League Baseball (MLB) team, the Twins. We have a team in the National Football League (NFL), the Vikings. A team in the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Timberwolves, and finally, a team in the National Hockey League (NHL), the Wild.

This is the second time the Twin Cities has had four teams, in four major leagues. This region had four teams from 1989-1993. The Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves and our old NHL team, the North Stars. Of course, the North Stars moved to Dallas at the end of the 1993 season.

So, we've done this before, and we've done well - in my estimation. The reason the North Stars left had nothing to do with attendance (having been in the Stanley Cup Playoffs a couple years earlier). The move had a little to do with the arena (the Met Center was getting old, and with the Timberwolves' new Target Center having opened a year earlier, made it hard for the Bloomington arena to stay competitive). The move had a great deal to do with Stars' owner Norm Green and personal issues he was dealing with, including his marriage.

I read somewhere that Norm's wife (I believe it was in Jay Weiner's 2000 book Stadium Games) gave Norm an ultimatum: either sell the team, or move to Dallas. And to the disappointment of many Minnesotans, Green chose the latter.

The Twin Cities got an NHL franchise back on June 22, 1997, to begin play in 2000, and we've been a four-team market ever since. The Twins stuck it out and waited 11 years to get a new ballpark to keep them competitive. The Wild sell out every game at the Xcel Energy Center. The Timberwolves are happy, just uncompetitive on the court.

This is just my opinion, but instead of complaining about having too many teams, wouldn't that be considered a good business model? A market this size, supporting four teams? The Twin Cities isn't the size of Los Angeles, and yet, we have an NFL team, Los Angeles doesn't. Saint Louis is a good-sized market, as is Kansas City; and neither has an NBA team. Kansas City had all four teams back in the 70s, but lost their NBA team to Sacramento in 1985; and their three-year-old NHL team to Denver in 1975.

I don't quite understand why soccer was thrown into the mix. Yes, we do have a pro soccer team here, the Minnesota Thunder, but they are in a minor-league type situation. They are not a member franchise of MLS (Major League Soccer), which sometimes uses NFL stadiums for their games; although, many teams are building smaller, soccer-specific stadiums.

With the stadium issue of the Minnesota Vikings once again waiting to rear its head in the 2010 Minnesota State Legislative session, and the NFL deciding to cut its revenue-sharing program for smaller-market teams (i.e. the Vikings), it will be interesting to see how much longer the Twin Cities will remain a market with four (five if you throw in the Thunder) pro teams. But, so far, I think we're doing well.

To read the article from the Twin Cities Business Journal, click here:
http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2009/12/14/story9.html

Thanks for reading, and have a great Christmas season.

The Metrodome Gets a New Name

Imagine my shock today, when I looked at my daily email from the Twin Cities Business Journal saying that the Vikings have sold the field naming rights to the Mall of America.(http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2009/09/28/daily47.html?ed=2009-10-01&ana=e_du_pub)

Call it what you want, the Hump, the Dump, the Humpty Dumpty...this one does take me by surprise. I know why they named the place the way they did back in 1982: after Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. But, the Dome seems to be a mediocre tribute to a famous Minnesota politician.

The article cites reasons why the Vikings did it: they are the only tenant left in the Dome as of next Monday (Oct. 5). The Gophers are gone, and the Twins will be moving into their new Target Field next April; however, the transition of the Twins offices to the new ballpark will probably take place much sooner. This deal is at least one means of making some extra revenue for the Vikings - now that they don't have 81 guaranteed nights of revenue from concessions, tickets, advertising and so forth.

The article begs the question, why would the Vikings ink a deal like this, with only a year-and-a-half left on their lease? They've been telling us for years, at the end of the 2011 season, their time is up. So, will a naming rights deal with the Mall of America really make that much of a difference?

There seems to be a catch, however. The naming deal does not expire until February 2012. According to the article, "the [Vikings] described the arrangements as a short-term rebranding effort." The fact that it is a "rebranding effort" piques my curiosity. I know that there has been some light talk as of late about a renovated Metrodome which the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission (the group that operates the Dome) touts as "Metrodome Next."

So, is this to suggest that the wheels are spinning for "Metrodome Next" to come to fruition; and the naming deal with the Mall of America is an inroad to the future of the Vikings and the Metrodome? I'm not entirely sure what is meant by a "short-term rebranding effort," usually, if you re-brand something, it's should stick for more than three years. Are the Vikings suggesting that a much larger re-branding effort is in the works somewhere?

The new naming rights deal will be unveiled on Monday Oct. 5 (the day after the Twins' final home game) during the Monday Night Football (R) matchup with the Green Bay Packers.