Access Vikings reports

Rest easy Vikings fans. You will be able to watch your team play host to the Eagles in a wild card playoff game Sunday.

The team announced this afternoon that it sold the remaining 3,100 tickets and thus avoided the team’s first local television blackout at the Metrodome since the 1997 regular-season finale. That means the Vikings’ first home playoff game since the 2000 season will be aired on Fox affiliate KMSP (Ch. 9) in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas as well as in secondary markets, including Alexandra, Redwood Falls, Austin, Mankato, Rochester, Bemidji and Mason City, Iowa.

This didn’t come without quite a bit of effort. Because only 55 percent of the Vikings’ season-ticket holders elected to purchase playoff tickets, the Vikings had 20,000 tickets to sell last Monday. That was a day after the Vikings clinched the NFC North title and a playoff berth with a victory over the New York Giants.

What made the challenge heading into today so great was that the remaining tickets weren’t exactly cheap. Tickets were priced at $80, $120 and $160.

The NFL’s blackout rules state that if a game is not sold out 72 hours before kickoff it can’t be televised in the home market, but the Vikings were given a 24-hour extension until 3:30 p.m. Friday. One extension isn’t rare, especially considering that it was a holiday on Thursday. However, when the game was not a sell out by Friday afternoon, the NFL granted another extension until 3:30 this afternoon. The NFL requires the Vikings to sell 62,000 tickets to consider a Metrodome game sold out.

Although two extensions are rare, the Vikings weren’t the only team to benefit from that this week. The Arizona Cardinals also were given until 24 hours before kickoff of today’s game against Atlanta to sell the remaining seats at University of Phoenix Stadium. The Cardinals managed to reach a sell out and avoid a blackout in that market.

What will be interesting now is to see the crowd that fills he Metrodome on Sunday. The Eagles had been encouraging their fans to “paint Minneapolis Green” and there is no doubt some folks from sports-crazed Philly probably took the advice.

Sunday’s game will mark the 115th consecutive sellout for the Vikings.