The Dome Stays In The Picture. For Now.

Image via WikipediaThe Minnesota Vikings will stay right where they are for the 2012 NFL season.

The lease on the Metrodome (aka Mall of America Field) in Minneapolis has expired, though there's the nagging issue of two games in 2010 that weren't played there because a snowstorm brought down the roof.  The Minnesota Legislature has been in session for almost a month, with no workable stadium bill brought to the floor.  And there's no one single site anyone can agree on.

The Vikings passed on notifying the NFL of their intention to move, believing enough progress has been made on a stadium to make it unnecessary.  Truth is, they couldn't move even if they wanted to.  NFL commissioner Roger Goodell put the kibosh on any team moving to Los Angeles for next season, and has said he'd rather see the league expand to 34 teams.  (Expand where, besides LA?  London?  Toronto?  Timbuktu?)

As much as the Vikings would love to get a stadium bill passed this session, there isn't the urgency there once was now that pulling up stakes is no longer an option.  The Republican-controlled Legislature has other fish to fry, such as putting certain issues on the November ballot that they should have taken care of themselves.  Even Democratic Governor Mark Dayton, when he isn't dissing GOP legislators for the shoddy work they're doing, rates the stadium bill a tossup.

But that hasn't stopped new or existing stadium proposals from coming out of the woodwork.  Ramsey County (which includes St. Paul) still believes the Arden Hills site has a shot, but the Vikings rejected a financing plan that benefitted the county rather than the team.  A state senator from northeastern Minnesota has proposed a stadium for Duluth, which is three hours north of the Twin Cities.  Not only is it far-fetched--the NFL presumably doesn't want or need another Green Bay, but this proposal was probably meant to give hope to an economically-challenged region of the state.

The new front-runner takes the Vikings back to Point A (or close to it).  It's an area east of the Metrodome that currently includes a parking lot, a tech building and a power substation.  The Vikings seem to like this a lot better than bulldozing the Dome immediately, spending the next couple of years at the University of Minnesota while their new digs are being built.  Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak has been beating the drums for this new site.  Now all he has to do, once the agreement is in place, is to convince the City Council and the Legislature to sign off on it.  Neither are considered sure bets, to put it mildly.

Here's where we are now.  The Vikings are stuck in limbo, forced to play in a dome they no longer want to be in, and facing an uncertain future in Minnesota.  The stadium dream is slowly focusing into reality, but no one seems to have figured out a palatable way to pay for it.  And this is an election year, which means not much gets done in Minnesota's legislative branch.  Meanwhile an entire state, whether they're football fans or not, awaits the outcome of the game that would not end.