Vikings Stadium - Current Metrodome Lease

Current Metrodome Lease

The Vikings' lease with the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission (MSFC), as signed by both parties in August 1979, kept them in the Metrodome until 2011. The lease was considered one of the least lucrative among NFL teams; it includes provisions where the commission owns the stadium, and the Vikings were locked into paying rent until the end of the 2011 season. For the past 9 seasons, however, the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission has been waiving the team's nearly $4 million rent. The Vikings pay the MSFC 9.5 percent of its ticket sales; the commission "reserves all rights to sell or lease advertising in any part of the Stadium" and the team cannot use the scoreboard for any ads and does not control naming rights for the building; the commission controls the limited parking and its revenue; and the commission pays the team 10 percent of all concession sales, which in 2004 and 2005, amounted to just over half a million for the team each year while the MSFC takes roughly 35 percent of concessions sold during Vikings games. The Vikings were 30th out of 32 NFL teams in local revenues in 2005. The Vikings, as well as the stadium's other tenants, have continually turned down any proposals for renovating the Metrodome itself. A plan for a joint Vikings/University of Minnesota football stadium was proposed in 2002, but differences over how the stadium would be designed and run, as well as state budget constraints, led to the plan's failure. The university would eventually open its own TCF Bank Stadium in 2009.