By a vote of 7-6, the Minneapolis City council approved the funding for the Vikings new stadium on Friday clearing the way for a brand new stadium to be built. The battle for a new stadium lasted nearly a decade and culminated when the Vikings finally took a stand against the city this offseason. The threat of relocation has paid off in a big way.
The stadium is estimated to cost $957 million with the city of Minneapolis subsidizing $309 million of the total sum. The state of Minnesota and the Vikings will cover the rest of the cost.
The Vikings are one of a handful of NFL teams currently in desperate need of a new or renovated stadium. The Raiders and the Chargers are both playing in far outdated facilities, and those teams will be moving to the forefront of the relocation debate. As it stands, those teams in need of a new stadium will be able to use the NFL’s need for a team in L.A. to their advantage as the Vikings so successfully did.
The NFL has made it clear that they are not interested in expanding the number of teams in the league at this point in time. That being the case, a team will be expected to move to Los Angeles when the stadium there is completed. In a world where leverage is everything, the NFL is giving its teams a huge upper hand in stadium negotiations so long as L.A. remains without an NFL team.
