Because the Vikings cannot continue in the existing facility, where they are losing money despite sellout crowds every week, McCombs says he has hired JP Morgan Securities to evaluate "all possible options."
"These options will include but not be limited to relocation or a sale," McComb says in a prepared statement.
The Vikings are bound to the Metrodome by a lease that runs through 2011.
A few months ago, J.P. Morgan Chase began "evaluating the marketplace" for McCombs. Now, McCombs said, the brokerage firm will explore any option that "keeps theVikings healthy."
When he bought the team in 1998 for $246 million, McCombs knew the Vikings' Metrodome lease doesn't expire until 2011 but said he hoped he could "make it work." Since then, the Vikings have sold out every home game and missed the postseason just once. But the Vikings' revenue ranks among the lowest in the NFL--due primarily to its venue, the 21-year-old Metrodome.
On the other hand, McComb acknowledges that NFL teams are probably worth about double what he paid for the Vikings.
Vikings officials worry that waiting a year to get a stadium bill approved would be costly because an NFL funding program that would provide about $51 million expires in March.
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