Arden Hills Would Be 2nd Smallest NFL City if Vikings Stadium Deal Passes

Only East Rutherford, New Jersey – home to New Meadowlands Stadium – has a smaller population than Arden Hills, Minnesota

A day after Minneapolis unveiled its stadium proposal to keep the Minnesota Vikings in the City of Lakes, an agreement was reached between the team and Ramsey County in which a new stadium would be built in Arden Hills, Minnesota.

The agreement commits the Vikings to pay for nearly 40 percent of stadium costs ($417 million), with Ramsey County on the hook for $350 million and the state for $300 million.

The deal still needs to be approved by the Minnesota Legislature and Governor Mark Dayton, as well as the Ramsey County Board for the half a cent sales tax it will use to fund its share of the stadium.

If the deal is ultimately approved, in three years the Vikings would play their home games in the second smallest city in the National Football League.

Arden Hills, a Twin Cities suburb located northwest of St. Paul in Ramsey County, has a 2010 Census population of just 9,552 residents.

The only stadium located in a smaller city is New Meadowlands Stadium – home to the New York Jets and New York Giants.

That stadium is in the New Jersey borough of East Rutherford, which has a population of 639 fewer residents than Arden Hills (8,913).

Only three other teams in the NFL play in stadiums located in towns with a population of less than 100,000 people:

· The New England Patriots play at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which has a population of 16,865.

· The Washington Redskins play at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland – an unincorporated community with a population of 23,078.

· The Buffalo Bills play at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, which boasts a population of 29,054.

Mall of America Field, where the Vikings currently play in Minneapolis, is located in the 18th most populous city among NFL stadium sites (with a 2010 Census population of 382,578).

The Vikings’ chief rival, the Green Bay Packers, are renowned for playing in the smallest metropolitan area of any NFL team.

However, the Pack plays its games in Green Bay proper, the population for which just passed 100,000 this census period (104,057), which is good for the sixth smallest city to host an NFL stadium.

With Los Angeles still without a team and the New York Jets and Giants playing in New Jersey, the Bears’ Solider Field is located in the most populous city of any NFL franchise (with nearly 2.7 million residents in Chicago).

NFL Stadiums by Smallest Host City

* Proposed stadium site. Population based on 2010 U.S. Census data.

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