MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - JANUARY 15: Kirk Cousins #8 and head coach Kevin O'Connell of the Minnesota Vikings are seen prior to the NFC Wild Card playoff game against the New York Giants at U.S. Bank Stadium on January 15, 2023 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
The Minnesota Vikings are an American football team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
After initially committing to become one of the founding members of the American Football League (AFL) in 1959, the team joined the National Football League (NFL) as an expansion franchise and played their first game in 1961, as part of the Western Conference.
In 1967, they were placed into the new Central division, which became part of the National Football Conference following the AFL–NFL merger in 1970.
The divisions were reorganized again in 2002, with the Vikings as part of the NFC North, in which they have played ever since.
The Vikings have won their division 20 times and appeared in the playoffs 30 times, leading to four conference championships (in 1969, 1973, 1974 and 1976) and one NFL title in 1969.
The team has had three home stadiums, all in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area: Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington (1961–1981), and the Hubert H.
Humphrey Metrodome (1981–2013) and U.S. Bank Stadium (2016–present) in Minneapolis itself; during the construction of U.S.
Bank Stadium (2014–2015), they also played at the Minnesota Golden Gophers’ TCF Bank Stadium, also in Minneapolis.
Professional football history in the Twin Cities began in the 1920s; the Minneapolis Marines joined the American Professional Football Association (later to become the National Football League) in 1921, but folded in 1924; they were resurrected as the Minneapolis Red Jackets in 1929 but lasted just two seasons before merging with the Frankford Yellow Jackets.
A new professional team in the area did not surface again until August 1959, when three Minneapolis businessmen – Bill Boyer, H.P.
Skoglund and Max Winter – were awarded a franchise in the new American Football League.
Harry Gustafson is, in-part, credited with providing the “Vikings” name. Gustafson was part of an ownership group for a professional bowling team in the short-lived National Bowling League (NBL) in the early 1960s.
Winter was also a part of that ownership group. In a narrative recounted by Winter and later confirmed by Gustafson, the two of them compiled a list of names for the bowling team, and Gustafson, an attorney, filed copyright for two names: “The Twin City Skippers” and the “Minnesota Vikings.” The bowling team became the Skippers, but Gustafson retained the legal right to the “Vikings” name, which was used by Winter for the football team. Winter later credited Harry with giving him the name. Under the ownership of Max Winter, the franchise recognized Gustafson in 1989 during a pre-game ceremony at which the team presented Gustafson with a plaque for his “input in establishing the Viking name and the Viking tradition.”
Ole Haugsrud was added to the NFL team ownership because of an agreement he had with the NFL since the 1920s when he sold his Duluth Eskimos team back to the league.
The agreement allowed him 10% of any future Minnesota team. The ownership group, along with Bernard H.
Ridder, forfeited its AFL membership (which was subsequently passed onto the Oakland Raiders) and then were awarded the National Football League’s 14th franchise on January 28, 1960, with play to begin in 1961.
