Vikings take brilliant step to lessen Lions' home-field advantage, prove they're one of the best franchises
The Minnesota Vikings are arguably about to play in the biggest regular season game in the history of the National Football League on Sunday night against the Detroit Lions Sunday night will be the first time in NFL history that the number one seed and a division title will be decided in the same game […]
The Minnesota Vikings are arguably about to play in the biggest regular season game in the history of the National Football League on Sunday night against the Detroit Lions
Sunday night will be the first time in NFL history that the number one seed and a division title will be decided in the same game during the final week of the regular season.
The atmosphere at Ford Field will be off the charts great and the Lions fans will be loud beyond belief. However, there won't only be Lions fans in the building.
Vikings buy up tickets to Sunday's game
Late in the week, Vikings season ticket holders received quite an email from the organization, offering tickets to the game that they had purchased on the secondary market.
Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer reported that the Vikings spent nearly $2 million to buy tickets for the game and both sell them to season ticket holders and give better seats to family members of the team.
In the days leading up to Sunday night’s showdown against the Detroit Lions, the Vikings took the unusual measure of buying around 1,900 tickets for the road game on the secondary market, at about $1,000 apiece, for a total approaching $2 million. The team then turned around and sent an email to season ticket holders, offering the opportunity to buy the tickets at a much lower price point, and in some cases for as little as $200 per ticket.
The rival Lions flagged it, with the team’s ticket office noticing the unusual activity, then finding out about the email. The email said, “As a valued season ticket member, we want to offer you the opportunity to purchase lower-level seats for Sunday night’s game.” The tickets were available on a first-come-first-serve basis, and the team added in the email that they were “intended to be used by Vikings fans and not positioned for resale.”
Not only that, most of the tickets were bought behind the visitor's bench, which will theoretically help the visiting Vikings to communicate on the sidelines. It's also to give the families a better place to sit.
“Given the uniqueness of this game, we wanted to offer our stakeholders—staff, family, season ticket members and team partners—an opportunity to attend,” said team spokesman Jeff Anderson in a statement.
The Lions did contact the league but found out that the Vikings didn't violate any rules. They have every right to be frustrated by the Vikings doing this, as they want as many possible fans to be supporting them at home.
What this does is prove once again that the Vikings organization continues to be a first-class operation. They have finished first and second in the NFL in the NFLPA player survey and the Vikings continue to put players, families, and fans first. Now, they will have less of a disadvantage on the sidelines with more fans behind them.
This is blossoming into a big rivalry that wasn't there before and the Vikings have taken advantage of that.
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