The $975 million future home of the Minnesota Vikings may someday host Super Bowls, Final Fours, and professional soccer tournaments.
On Friday, the newly created public body working with the team to build the downtown Minneapolis stadium briefly entertained another possibility -- playing host to a national championship college football game.
"I don't think there is anything that is off the table at this point," Steve Maki, director of facilities and engineering for the Metrodome, said after members of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority met for only the second time since being appointed last month.
Maki told authority members that he recently contacted Bowl Championship Series (BCS) administrators, who help determine matchups for post-season college football games, and asked them to review a general outline for the Vikings stadium project.
Key elements of that outline, created in 2008 and 2009 by HKS Architects of Dallas and Mortenson Construction of Minneapolis , were used in shaping the stadium financing legislation approved this spring.
Maki said the authority wants to know whether that plan, nearly four years old, is adequate for hosting a BCS playoff game or an NCAA Final Four men's basketball tournament, or whether it needs to be tweaked.
He said officials from both organizations plan to respond by the end of July -- in advance of the authority's hiring of an architectural firm to begin detailed work on designing the new stadium.
"All we're trying to do is find out if the program we have out there appears to meet their needs and if the planned stadium could meet the BCS needs," he said. "We're trying to make sure we haven't eliminated any options."
