Vikes To Consider San Antonio Bid

Minnesota Vikings owner Red McCombs plans to meet with San Antonio officials to discuss a proposal to move the team to Texas.

McCombs, who is from San Antonio, said he would give the proposal his full attention, though he indicated that his primary interest is to keep the Vikings in Minnesota.

"The Vikings are the Minnesota Vikings," McCombs said.

San Antonio Mayor Howard Peak plans to draft a proposal that will attempt to lure teams such as the Vikings or New Orleans Saints to San Antonio, a spokesman from the mayor's office said.

The Vikings maintain that, because of the Metrodome's limitations, they are among the lowest revenue-producers in the NFL. They believe they will fall to last when a new stadium is built for the Arizona Cardinals.

"We will not survive in the Metrodome," McCombs said. "We have to (reach an agreement to) be out of the Metrodome in a year or so. Hopefully, we can find a place here. That's the way it should be."

Because the NFL has placed a moratorium on expansion, Peak has made the recruitment of another team to San Antonio a priority before his term runs out in June.

Peak is seeking opinions on how to make the 7-year old, 65,000-seat Alamodome more attractive to NFL teams, McCombs said. Also, the Alamodome will be without a primary tenant when the NBA's Spurs move to a new arena in 2002.

"They have had several visits with me," said McCombs, who brought the Spurs to San Antonio from Dallas in 1972. "I was the franchise seeker for San Antonio in 1993, when it went to Jacksonville. That's a matter of record. I identify with sports in San Antonio.

"So it's not unusual. Even if I didn't own the Minnesota Vikings, I would be in that loop looking for professional football in San Antonio."


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