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At the NFL's Owners Meetings that are taking place this week, the new stadium that the Minnesota Vikings will call home starting in 2016 could already be paying dividends for the state of Minnesota.
According to Jarrett Bell of USA Today, Minneapolis has been named one of the three finalists to host Super Bowl LII (which is 52 for you non-Roman types), which will take place in February of 2018. The other two finalists named were Indianapolis and New Orleans.
The locations for the next few Super Bowls are as follows:
Super Bowl XLVIII (2014) - MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey
Super Bowl XLIX (2015) - University of Phoenix Stadium, Phoenix, Arizona
Super Bowl L (2016) - Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara, California (the new home of the San Francisco 49ers)
Super Bowl LI (2017) - Reliant Stadium, Houston, Texas
The team apparently put in bids to host the Super Bowl in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Hopefully the league can see their way clear to giving the Twin Cities one of those three games. With as outstanding as the new stadium appears it will be, it would be pretty silly of them not to.
According to the Indianapolis Star, the city of Indianapolis had about $342 million in outside spending come into the city from hosting the Super Bowl in 2012. You would think that the Twin Cities could see at least that much if they were to host this game, and quite possibly more.
In any case, it seems like a pretty good deal for the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.