The NFL’s owners awarded the 2018 Super Bowl to Minneapolis and its $1 billion downtown stadium, the first time football’s biggest game will come to Minnesota since 1992.
“In hindsight, we shouldn’t be too surprised that Minneapolis won the bid for Super Bowl LII … It was the only one among the three candidates to pay the entrance fee. The “fee,” if it wasn’t already
clear, is a new stadium—preferably funded at least in half by the taxpayers, of course.”
—Boston Globe, May 21
“New Orleans learned a valuable lesson in defeat on Tuesday. It’s not about the bid—at least not when there’s a new stadium in the mix. By all accounts, Minneapolis’ bid fell well short in almost every way from the ones presented by New Orleans and Indianapolis. It wasn’t as financially rewarding or creatively ambitious. And it mattered not.”
—New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 22
“Tuesday was a good day for [the Wilfs] to be the owners of the Vikings, and as they landed a Super Bowl that’s sure to induce plenty of fretting about Minnesota’s frosty climate, it probably wasn’t hard for the Wilfs to feel the warmth from their adopted fan base.”
—espn.com
“Minnesota’s 2018 Super Bowl bid committee promised more than a great party. The state pledged to pick up a super tab, too. We may never know all of the details about Minnesota’s Super Bowl bid. Under state law, it’s private. But we do know the state’s top political leaders made a pledge to the multi-billion dollar NFL that it won’t have to pay sales taxes on Super Bowl tickets or related events. That’s a $9-million cost to taxpayers. And private donors may be asked to pay the game-day state income taxes of players and staff.”
—Pat Kessler, WCCO Minneapolis
