November 19, 2009

Vikings: Your lease deal makes us feel unloved, unwanted

The Minnesota Vikings owners upped the ante over the Metrodome lease standoff yesterday, following up Tuesday's angry press statements with an angry open letter to the sports commission (PDF here):

Come February, the Minnesota Vikings will have only 20 games remaining on our Metrodome lease. As the last tenant in the Metrodome, we would expect to be treated fairly and with some minimum level of respect. Your actions yesterday leave us confused and questioning the future of this franchise.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what they call a move threat. (Or rather, a non-threat threat.) It's hard to gauge whether it's a more direct threat than their last one, but you have to think the new L.A. stadium in the works is making Vikes management feel like they have more leverage here.

The ball is now back in the sports commission's court, with a scheduled vote today on the lease extension plan that started the whole kerfuffle.