 | This article appears to be slanted towards recent events. (May 2011) |
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.