MSFA Prepares For Possible NCAA Football Championship Bid

Following the success of the first College Football Playoff, MSFA Chair Michele Kelm-Helgen discussed at today's board meeting that there is a strong possibility that a bid will be submitted to bring the championship game to Minneapolis. A request for proposals will come out in February with responses due later in the spring. A group of finalists for the games that will take place in 2018, 2019 and 2020 will be selected for site visits this summer with a decision likely coming in September. Due to the new stadium being selected to host Super Bowl LII in February 2018, the Minnesota bid will only be for the 2019 and 2020 games.

Doug Belden of the St. Paul Pioneer Press has more on the upcoming college football bid here.

Vikings Seek Local Artwork For New Stadium

In case you missed it earlier this week, the Vikings announced a partnership to acquire local artwork for the new stadium. Sports and the Arts will work with the Vikings to find museum-quality work from local artists that will be displayed at the new stadium. The work will showcase Vikings history, Minnesota sports history and other regional history. Interested artists can submit a short bio, sample images of artistic pieces indicating the style of their work and any other relevant information via PDF to art@newminnesotastadium.com from February 1, 2015, until March 31, 2015. Artists will be notified of their acceptance in the summer of 2015.

Sports and the Arts has collaborated on similar projects with Levi Stadium, the new San Francisco 49ers stadium, Marlins Park in Miami, Fla., and the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, NY.

Mortenson Construction Provides Stadium Update; 35% of Stadium Construction Completed

During this morning's MSFA board meeting, Mortenson Construction provided an update on the process of the new Vikings stadium, noting that 35% of the stadium construction has been completed. Despite the bitter cold, concrete work continues to wrap up as 80% is now complete and there are just six concrete decks left to be poured.

Glass on the east side of the stadium will begin to be put in place in the coming months and the framework of the stadium, the "ribcage" as Mortenson Vice President Allen Troshinsky referred to it as, is slated to be completed in November. The main roof truss is completed and there are three more segments that are currently being worked on. This portion of the construction will wrap up this summer and the largest crane on the site will be completely demobilized following that.

Vikings Add Over $944,000 to The Team/Private Contribution

The MSFA approved an additional $944,198 contribution by the Vikings and Wilf family for the construction of the new stadium. The additional funds will go towards upgrading items already in the budget including exterior paneling and exterior soffits. This added contribution brings the overall additional team/private contributions to over $52 million since the original budget was approved. The overall budget of the new stadium now stands at $1.027 billion with $529 million coming from the team/private sources. The public contribution is capped at $498 million.

The MSFA also announced today that Aramark, the food and beverage provider of the new stadium, has increased their contribution from $3 million to $10 million for food service equipment.