Northern Minnesota is under a new alert until Friday at 7 p.m.

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Fans can try the seat cushions, check out the suite fridges and get a turf-level view of the new Vikings stadium even before the Metrodome has been knocked down.

Two and a half years before the place opens, potential buyers are already walking through the team's sales center across 6th Street, starting with an interactive video greeting from Adrian Peterson and other star players. Fans can walk down a simulated field tunnel with the team and step into a mock-up of the Fire and Ice "club" areas that will be among the amenities in the new stadium.

Jason Gonella with Van Wagner Sports and Entertainment, the firm helping the Vikings sell their new stadium's tickets, seat licenses and premium seats, says he thinks fans will react positively when they see what the team actually has to offer.

"We're not quite ready to go to the broad season ticket base," he said, "but the initial reaction from the calls that we've had, the email exchanges and what have you, it's been very positive. I think people are happy with what they've seen in terms of the offerings are and the related costs of those offerings."

The Vikings offered new details today on what they'll be offering fans. The new stadium will have five different kinds of suites, ranging in cost from $110,000 to $500,000 each per season. They break down like this:

Premium suite packages are all-inclusive and include game tickets, food and drink for up to 32 fans each.

The team will also be showing off a sample of about 8,000 club seats. Vikings marketing director Steve LaCroix explains: "In a club area, only those who have similar tickets can access, so it's not  in a general public concourse area. There's a variety of food and beverage offerings, and you'll have the right to purchase tickets for those seats for other events, as those come into the market."

Like the suites, they'll come in five different versions, starting beside the playing surface with the Field Club, going to the Valhalla, then up to the larger Vikings club, which is a very large event space, and then up to the Fire and Ice clubs. They'll all be centered on the 50-yard line, and pair with the best seats in the new stadium. The lower level clubs, the Field Club and Valhalla Clubs are all-inclusive, with food and beverages included in the ticket prices.

That'll put the top spots at the stadium at nearly a half a million dollars, with others topping $4,000 a season per seat. That's far out of reach for many fans in what was originally dubbed the "People's Stadium," by Gov. Mark Dayton, the project's chief proponent.

But LaCroix, the team's marketing director, says those people include some very successful business executives that make up a thriving corporate community in the state. He says the team thinks the market will bear those big six-figure prices.

"You know, we've done our research and there's only a handful of those. You know most of the suites will be in that $110-120 thousand range. There will be a few that are priced very aggressively,"  LaCroix said in an interview today. "They're oversized. They're the best suites in the National Football League as far as being 17 rows up. The food and beverage is included, so all of those things add into we think very attractive for certain companies."

Tim Nelson

Author

Fans can try the seat cushions, check out the suite fridges and get a turf-level view of the new Vikings stadium even before the Metrodome has been knocked down.


Vikings fans are already kicking the tires on the new stadium sales lot

Go Deeper.

Like this?