Philly Invasion

As of yesterday, the Vikings still had 11,000 tickets to sell to keep Sunday’s playoff game from being blacked out in the Twin Cities.  The NFL eased the situation somewhat by giving the team until 3:30 CT Friday to make it happen, but it still seems unlikely that the tickets will be sold by natural means, meaning the local Fox affiliate will have to step in – again – and buy up the remainder to avert the black out.  The situation was apparently created largely by season ticket holders who for whatever reason didn’t opt to pick up their seats for the playoffs, leaving 20,000 tickets to sell as of Monday.

Of course, one man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity, which is why the Eagles are going all-out in encouraging their fans to buy up the tickets the Vikings faithful haven’t been.  They’ve even launched a Let’s Paint Minneapolis Green campaign and are touting it on the team’s homepage.  Here’s what their splashpage looks like:

I suppose I could do my small part to fight back against this by encouraging Viking fans to go out and buy tickets but, obviously, there would be no point.  Viking fans have spoken loud and clear:  They don’t have any faith in this team, and therefore are not going to shell out good money to watch them.  They fully expect a blow-out on Sunday and have no desire to witness it in person.  And all this while Zygi Wilf is fighting like mad to get a new stadium.  Personally, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that stadium gets built.  A community that won’t even turn out for a rare playoff game is certainly not going to sign off on spending gazillions on a new facility.  They might as well start making the L.A. Vikings merchandise right now.