Before a quiet crowd with a show-me attitude the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Oakland Raiders 29-22 yesterday at the Metrodome. In a game characterized by false starts, fumbles, and inept offensive and defensive line play by the Raiders, now 2-8 on the season, the Vikings won for a second time in three games and moved their record to 4-6.
Give the Vikings credit for surprising the San Diego Chargers two weeks ago at home in a 35-17 win, and for combining a strong running game (Chester Taylor, 164 yards) with a per usual stingy run defense that limited the Raiders to 61 yards (it was a curiously focused Oakland game plan that insisted on running the ball persistently at the Vikings’ stud defensive tackles, Pat Williams and Kevin Williams). In between those two wins, however, was an embarrassing 34-0 loss to the Packers in Green Bay.
The Packer loss was one more mark on a list of disappointments that Vikings fans have been memorizing in recent seasons. Whether it’s a lot of losses (10-16 in the last two seasons), missed playoff years (last time was 2004), questionable personnel decisions (like Tarvaris Jackson now, Randy Moss awhile back), coaches (Mike Tice versus Brad Childress), off the field incidents (where to start?), or whatever, the fans have become disappointed, angry and more reluctant to buy tickets. Each week of a home game it’s a news story to see what other organization in town will buy the remaining tickets to create a sellout in the dome and avoid a local TV blackout.
Even when Adrian Peterson rushed for an NFL single game record 296 yards against the Chargers, the multitudes didn’t storm the box office for tickets to future games. While TV ratings remain similar to past seasons (there are still a half million or so fans in the marketplace watching each game), the public has issues with the Vikings, according to John Rash. He’s an advertising executive in Minneapolis with Campbell Mithun, an expert on pop culture and follows the popularity of the team.
In an interview with Sports Headliners last week he was asked what’s newsworthy about the Vikings from a cultural perspective. “To the degree of how people still are so passionate,” he said. “The only thing worse than the anger being expressed at them (the Vikings), is apathy, and they haven’t reached that point. They’re bordering it at least with enough fans that (it) might mean a potential blackout on this week’s as well as subsequent week’s games. But this team truly is the state’s soap opera and they’re following them (the Vikings) even through the bad times, and the key is to give them (the fans) enough hope that good times will return.”
How close is the fan base to apathy? “The NFL has transcended a sporting event and become a social experience where a lot of people plan at least a portion of their weekend on how to get together for THE game, and so even when they (the Vikings) don’t play well, it’s still part of people’s media and social habit,” Rash said. “The bigger question is, do they (the Vikings) have enough relevance and resonance, and if not an outright embrace, to accomplish the team’s bigger goals of getting a stadium. And for now that is a much more difficult endeavor for them to accomplish.”
What will it take to have more fans buying tickets for home games? “Hope. Hope sells always for a sports franchise,” Rash answered. “Right now many Viking fans don’t have hope that there is any significant improvement on the immediate or long term basis. It’s not certain if it’s going to mean a coaching change but it certainly means the change in perception of the direction of the team, and right now the feeling among most Minnesotans is uniformly negative. “
Does Rash agree that the TV ratings are comparable to the past? “No question about it,” he said. “People make this a part of their relaxation, their entertainment, their diversion over a weekend. That’s a long ingrained habit, very difficult to change, and certainly the Vikings are going to have enough of a grace period to get people back and even increase those television ratings, and indeed, one great game by Adrian Peterson changed the perception, at least for a week. But longer term the team has to address several issues to be able to stay the unquestioned top sports franchise in Minnesota.”
What are those issues? “The quality of the team, the front office judgment, the coaching and the perception that there’s a cohesive long term strategy,” Rash said.