Vikings News: 2020 regular season might not begin until October

Some recent Minnesota Vikings news involves the COVID-19 pandemic causing the NFL possibly not playing meaningful games until the middle of October.

In a few weeks, the NFL will reveal the 2020 regular season schedules for the Minnesota Vikings and every other team around the league.

Despite the unknowns that have been created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the NFL is still hoping to have the regular season begin on time in early September. However, the league reportedly has a number of backup plans in case the pandemic forces changes to be made.

On Monday, the Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand and Ben Fischer reported that the start of the 2020 regular season for the Vikings and the other 31 NFL teams could be delayed until October 15. This would be about five weeks later than when the league typically begins their season each year.

If the NFL were forced to do this, it could result in the elimination of bye weeks, no weeks off during the playoffs, no Pro Bowl, and Super Bowl that could be played as late as February 28 according to Ourand and Fischer.

Despite a possible delay to the start of everything, the league would still like to make sure all 16 regular-season games are played in 2020. Obviously, the players are going to be ecstatic to play an entire season without a single bye week.

Now, none of this has been finalized or anything like that. The NFL, just like everyone else in the world right now, is just waiting to see when things are ready to return back to a semi-normal fashion.

Even if the league is able to begin their season at their original start date, it could be without the presence of fans. Ticket sales only account for around 15 percent of the NFL’s average revenue, so not having fans present each week is something that wouldn’t be a tremendous loss for the billion-dollar league.

With there still a lot of time between now and September, it’s really hard to predict what will happen and when Minnesota’s season might actually begin. At the very least, it seems like the NFL is considering multiple options to ensure that football is played before the end of the year.