The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Vikings compete in the National Football Conference of the National Football League. They have been a member of the North Division since the NFL realigned in 2002. Prior to the realignment, they had been a member of the Central Division, also known as the Black & Blue Division. The Vikings have won one NFL championship (Pre-1970 AFL-NFL Merger) losing 23-7 to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl IV and were the first team to both play in and lose four Super Bowls. The Vikings have won their division 16 times, third most among teams currently playing in the NFL.

The club was founded in 1961 after the ownership group withdrew membership to the American Football League and agreed to join the NFL as an expansion team. The team played home games at Metropolitan Stadium through the 1981 NFL season and have played their home games at Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (the home of the American League baseball team Minnesota Twins) since 1982. However, the future of the Metrodome is in doubt, as the Vikings (significantly encumbered by lease conditions at the stadium) are attempting to secure a new stadium for their own use.

Franchise history

main: History of the Minnesota Vikings

1960s

Pro football in the Twin Cities began with the Minneapolis Marines/Red Jackets, an NFL team that played intermittently in the 1920s-30s. However, 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. Five months later in January 1960, the ownership group along with Bernie Ridder forfeited its AFL membership and then was awarded the National Football League's 14th franchise with play to begin in 1961. 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.

With the first overall selection in the 1961 NFL draft, the Vikings selected running back Tommy Mason of Tulane. They took a young quarterback from the University of Georgia named Fran Tarkenton in the third round. Notable veterans acquired in the offseason were Norm Snead and Hugh McElhenny. The Vikings won their first regular season game, defeating the Chicago Bears 37-13 on Opening Day 1961. Tarkenton came off the bench to throw four touchdown passes and run for another to lead the upset. Reality set in as the expansion team lost its next seven games on their way to a 3-11 record.