52 Pickup

One of the pleas by those who supported the building of a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings (aka the Vaseline Dome, per my pal Mark Heuring) is it would strongly enhance the chances of the Twin Cities hosting a Super Bowl, thus being a boon for our economy. Apparently fleecing the taxpayers for close to a half billion dollars makes it all worthwhile for two weeks of fanfare in late January/early February.

Anyhow, the "dream" has become a reality. 

Shouts of "history, history," rang out from the room where the Minnesota Vikings' delegation huddled together after the news was revealed.

Minneapolis, the supposed underdog city with the frigid temperatures in the winter, came out on top in the race for the Super Bowl in 2018 when the final announcement was made Tuesday afternoon.

Minneapolis beat out Indianapolis and New Orleans in a secret-ballot vote by NFL owners for Super Bowl LII.

"We're very proud to host Super Bowl LII," Vikings owner Zygi Wilf said. "It'll be an exciting time. I know we'll do a great job and we'll be proud. Working very hard right now to build a world-class venue."

Some of my general reactions regarding this news:

- According to some local media folks, we now shouldn't even bother running a Republican against Gov. Mark Dayton in this year's election cycle. Apparently the Twin Cities landing a Super Bowl is a big time feather in Dayton's cap given his unwavering "leadership" in getting a stadium bill passed two years ago. So the fact that his administration relied on overly optimistic projections of tax revenue from e-pull tabs (estimates offered up by an organization who stood to benefit from installation of e-pull tab machines, by the way) to generate the state's $348 million share of the stadium (but has yet to produce one penny) won't be a factor in the governor's race? How about the fact Dayton admitted he didn't understand what was in the legislation he signed, thus throwing a fit when he realized part of the Vikings' $477 million share can be offset via Personal Seat Licenses?

All that blundering and ineptitude has just fallen down the ol' memory hole, eh?


- Super Bowl LII will take place at the end of the second Vikings season in the new stadium. While it is the hope that the Vikes will be a championship contender by then, history is not on their side in terms of playing in the big game in February 2018. In fact, no team has ever played a Super Bowl in its home stadium. The closest was in Super Bowl XIX in January 1985 when the San Francisco 49ers played in Palo Alto, CA, a mere 30 miles from their home stadium. I guess the Vikings will have to win the Super Bowl sometime in the previous three seasons.


- There's the inevitable whining from some media members about having to venture up to the Twin Cities in January/February when the temperatures rarely exceed single digits. Suck it up you softies. It's the best, most popular sports event in history. It isn't about you.


- WHO DAT GONNA GET THE SUPER BOWL IN 2018???

Not The Big Easy!

Yes, this was quite an upset when you consider that the city of New Orleans had never failed to land the big game in the 10 previous occasions they were a finalist. In addition, the city was founded in 1718, thus they would be celebrating their tricentennial the same year they would would host a Super Bowl. Alas, it was not to be.

No word on whether any members of the New Orleans committee tried to deliberately "accidentally" injure the ankle of Marilyn Carlson Nelson in an effort to give themselves an advantage in the proceedings.


- Finally, it's time for me to pull the trigger on finishing our basement. Can you imagine the kind of coin I can potentially bring in for accommodating Super Bowl travelers for a week or two?

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