Minnesota Vikings Will Pay for Part of New Outdoor Stadium

The Minnesota Vikings are in the market for a new football stadium. If a building can be constructed without a roof, the team says it will pay for one-third of the total cost.

That sounds like a nice proposition in a situation where a roughly $700 million expense is involved. But is that the best solution?

For Vikings fans, the primary goal is to keep their team in Minnesota. If an outdoor stadium accomplishes that task, few would argue with returning to the team's glory years setting—outside, like old Metropolitan Stadium.

On the other hand, if that much money is going to be spent on a new stadium, why not just get the finishing touches? Most lawmakers want the building to be available for a multitude of uses, 365 days a year. If adding a roof gets a bill through legislature, how about making it retractable so everybody wins?

Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier expressed favor (I guess there's a conflict of interests within the organization) in keeping a lid on the team's facility—obviously citing the "bottling" of crowd noise as a major advantage at Vikings home games.

But in an outdoor design such as the Seattle Seahawks have successfully created as one of, if not the loudest stadium in the National Football League, it stands to reason the Vikings could conjure up a similar situation.

The Vikings' lease on the crumbling Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome expires at the end of the upcoming 2011 season, so a decision will need to be made soon. Otherwise, the looming threat of relocating the team to another city, like Los Angeles, seems like a viable—albeit unpleasant—option for the organization.