Tag Archives: Minnesota Twins

Mall of America Field

Tonight the Vikings play their first home game of the season. But the big talk isn’t about Brett Favre going up against his former Green Bay teammates (assuming any of them are left… I have no idea). It’s about the “new” Vikings stadium.

The Vikings don’t really have a new stadium. But after tomorrow (or whenever the Twins’ season finally fizzles out ends with a World Series victory), the Vikings will be the only remaining sports team calling the Metrodome home: the Twins are moving to the new Target Field on the other side of downtown next spring, and the Gophers have gone back to campus and the new TCF Bank Stadium.

Well, the Vikings surely couldn’t be left out of the stadium naming rights trend, and so they have rechristened the Metrodome — or at least its field — “Mall of America Field.” Or as I like to call it, MOAF.

As you can see in the aerial photo below, the new branding has already begun in a big way. It’s not the name that bothers me, so much as the font.

MOAF

Addendum: It seems just about every made-up sounding word is already a slang term, often a regrettable one, that can be found in the Urban Dictionary. And this is no exception. Just makes the whole thing even more regrettable.

The definition of madness: $2500 for a ticket to a Yankees game

No, those aren’t scalper prices. From kottke.org:

Option 1: Two tickets to Tuesday night, June 30, Mariners at Yanks, cost for just the tickets, $5,000.

Option 2: Two round-trip airline tickets to Seattle, Friday, Aug. 14, return Sunday the 16th, rental car for three days, two-night double occupancy stay in four-star hotel, two top tickets to both the Saturday and Sunday Yanks-Mariners games, two best-restaurant-in-town dinners for two. Total cost, $2,800. Plus-frequent flyer miles.

The thing that scares me most is that even after last year’s Wall Street collapse, there are probably still plenty of New Yorkers (though probably not so many who actually live in the Bronx, where the Yankees call home) who can easily afford these tickets. Personally, I’d take the mini-vacation and use the extra $2,200 I saved to buy a 55-inch flat panel to watch the other 160 games. But I guess the Yankees have to pay those 8-figure player salaries somehow. I just figured the $10 hot dogs and $15 MGDs would do it. (I’m just guessing at those prices — they’re probably more.)

This makes me a bit nervous as I anticipate the 2010 Twins season at Target Field. Sure, there’s no way in hell the Twins will be able to justify those kinds of ticket prices, but I fear the days of my beloved $8 “cheap seats” are numbered.