While sports must be important for economic development, we think too small in this Twin Cities region.

World class sports city host more than one team in a league. London has countless Football clubs (Premier League clubs include: Chelsea, Fulham, Arsenal, Tottenham, West Ham, Crystal Palace). Evan smaller cities like Manchester and Liverpool have United and City versions.

Back in the States, the NBA shares markets: Los Angeles hosts the San Diego Clippers and Minnesota Lakers, New York has the Knicks and the Knets.

Similarly Major League Baseball gives us Yankees and the Mets, Chicago has the Cubs and White Sox, the Bay Area has the New York Giants and Philadelphia A’s. In baseball, the American and National Leagues long competed over cities, although many teams have since moved (the Boston Braves, the St. Louis Browns, the Philadelphia Athletics, and New York City’s Giants and Dodgers come immediately to mind.)

In the NFL New York/New Jersey has the Jets and the Giants, and once world-class Los Angeles had the Raiders and Rams, and Chicago had the Cardinals and the Bears,

To meet this standard, Greater MSP needs a team to complement and compete with the Vikings, having merely one team halves our chances for a Super Bowl title, halves the number of Super Bowls we could host, halves the number of times Minnesota appears on Monday Night Football, and so on.

Fortunately, we have multiple football stadia, so can easily temporarily accommodate the second team for 8 games a year in either the new stadium or the much older more mature TCF bank stadium while a new Domed stadium is built to accommodate the expansion franchise (or perhaps a team will relocate from a market half our size). We have two core cities, we should have two teams in each professional league, starting with the NFL, since it is the most popular. A new team in the AFC would be ideal.

Just like the Packers and Steelers are named after a local industry, the new football team should be as well. I suggest the Minnesota Implanters, for our vibrant bio-medical devices sector.

Imagine it’s 2025, and a Superbowl, played in February at the new domed stadium, between the NFC Vikings and AFC Implanters. (We know the Implanters would win.) Fortune 500 companies would relocate to the city just to enjoy the party. If one team is good, two teams are better.