After reading the extensive article on the Green Bay Packers' front office, one of the points brought up by Kevin Seifert was that current Packers VP Tom Connolly was the Vikings GM back in 1999 and 2000. Since I don't spend a lot of time analyzing who is running the team's sales department, this was a connection I hadn't previously made.
I wanted to find out more about Connolly's departure and found this 2000 article from the Brainerd Dispatch (insert Fargo joke here). He lost a power struggle with Dennis Green, and instead he spent most of his 15 months with the team working on their bid for a new stadium. Yep, the Vikings have been trying to push for a new stadium for over 10+ years, and they still haven't gotten a final deal done for a new stadium or a temporary home during construction. Maybe Connolly was blamed for the fiasco of drafting Dimitrius Underwood, but I thought that was Green's blunder.
That 2000 article also said that Vikings former owner Red McCombs was willing to contribute $100 million to build a new stadium for $400 million. The price has gone up a bit since then. Current owner Zygi Wilf would now contribute $427 million of the $975 million for the proposed stadium.