Roger Goodell encourages more NFL teams to make infrastructure investment

Roger Goodell is stockpiling shovels, commemorative footballs and, yes, conspiracy theorists — he probably has a lot of hats, too.

Tuesday, the NFL commissioner walked into the Vikings' official Eagan groundbreaking for a new team headquarters and donned a NFC North championship hat with the Norseman logo. He walked out with a ceremonial football and purple shovel.

"I do have a few footballs and a few shovels around," Goodell said.

Goodell was in town for what has become a routine stop, shaking hands and posing for photos on the site of a new stadium or team compound. The Vikings have both, so Minnesota will see three visits by Goodell in a year after he attends the U.S. Bank Stadium regular-season opener against the Green Bay Packers on Sept. 18.

Goodell took a similar trip last month to Dallas, where he saw the Cowboys' new 90-acre headquarters set to open before the 2017 season.

"It's a similar type of concept," Goodell said. "You have retail, you have dining, you have corporate offices, you have training facilities and you have a medical facility."

The Vikings will incorporate all of that and more on the nearly 200-acre site, which could take 10 to 15 years to fully develop but is expected to be team-ready by 2018. A leaguewide movement has been "encouraged" by the NFL, Goodell said, to make more investments in infrastructure, which ultimately turns into a delicate partnership between the community and team.

"One thing I'm proud about with the NFL is we've done it successfully — we're one of the only leagues to contribute to these projects," Goodell said. "You see a real, true public partnership and that's what we have here in Minnesota.

"I think you're going to see it in Los Angeles. I think you're going to see it in a lot of markets now because it's working."

Piecing together ideas

Additional space will give the Vikings an ability to expand in areas such as sports science and athletic training. And they'll have an actual team meeting room; they currently use a cordoned-off corner of the indoor practice field in order to seat the entire roster at once.

Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman toured various college facilities, including the University of Oregon, to get ideas about how to structure the 45-acre parcel that will house the indoor facility.

An idea he picked up revolved around the team meeting rooms.

"For example, nowadays, at some of the facilities I've been at," Spielman said. "They're shaped like theater; it's up at different levels. They have maybe 10, 15 feet behind that seating area for players to stretch before the meeting starts."

'Our home'

Currently, four locations concentrated around two areas — U.S. Bank Stadium and the Winter Park facilities in Eden Prairie — house all Vikings employees.

Part of the push to establish the new headquarters was to bring everybody together, from the coaching staff to the marketing department. As the Vikings prepare to open the season in their new stadium, Spielman made clear where most of their work hours will be spent.

"This is going to be our home," Spielman said from a podium in Eagan.