Do Vikings Fans have a New Way to Support their Team?

One of the great things about sports is the rivalries that form between teams. And of course, the rivalries are enhanced by the fans of those teams.  

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Let’s take the NFL for instance, NFC North Rivals the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers. The rivalry runs deep and sometimes gets a little petty. Fans love it when anything embarrassing happens to their rivals. Heck, the fans will argue back and forth over things that happened years ago.  

Last week, the NFL Draft was held in NFC North territory, when Detroit hosted the draft. Multiple reports have raved about the way the city embraced the event and welcomed visitors from other teams, as well as their own Lions fans.  

Reports state that over 775,000 fans were a part of the three-day event.  

Now back to the fans that I mentioned earlier, with Detroit knocking it out of the park as the host this year, it got me thinking; “what will next year's draft look like”? Because next year’s draft will be held in Green Bay.  

Again, in the NFC North’s backyard. I can imagine that there are meetings already taking place in the land of the "Cheeseheads" to “up the ante” from what Detroit did this past year. Plus, capture as much of an economic win for their area in the process. 

And that extends to the fans. More than likely Packers fans are starting their plans as well. They’ll spend time over the next year developing a plan to raise the bar higher than anyone ever has and make it hard for the next city who hosts the draft.  

And for the fans of teams like The Vikings, the Chicago Bears and of course the Lions for next years draft, their goal is to invade enemy territory and leave their mark as well. They'll be trying to find a way to have people talking about how well their team was represented. Could the draft in one of your rivals cities be treated like a road game in the future?

I could see something developing here that happens in college football with the Clemson Tigers. Whenever Clemson plays on the road, their fans carry with them ton's of two dollar bills that have orange "Tiger Paws" stamped on them. That way, once the game is over and the fans leave, businesses can see the impact having Clemson come to their town has had.

The NFL doesn’t need popularity, but the league certainly hit a higher bar with last week's draft. And now that teams and their fans can try to out-do their rivals in hosting the draft, each city that hosts will likely win, but the league will be the bigger winner in the end.