The 100 members of yesterday's media tour at U.S. Bank Stadium "got a behind-the-scenes look into the exclusive clubs and suites" at the Vikings' new venue, according to Rochelle Olson of the Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE. The tour "started in the Medtronic Club and went up to the FMP Club, two higher-end suites." Reporters "used the building’s elevators for the first time to get to the media area on an upper level." Another stop was the Mystic Lake Club Purple for fantasy football, which "has an outdoor deck facing westward overlooking the plaza as well as tables inside and lots of comfortable seating facing the field." The four corners of each video board above the two end zones "feature ads from Pepsi, Andersen Windows, Land O Lakes and Hy-Vee among others" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 7/20). In St. Paul, John Shipley writes it is an "awesome football stadium, with wide concourses opening to the field, an 8,100-square-foot video board and an impressive transparent roof" that will give fans the "feeling of being outdoors without the hassle of being rained or snowed upon." The building’s sharp angles and black zinc facade "will shed and disperse the heavy winter snows the way its predecessor could not, saving energy and the need to build yet another stadium." But the stadium sits "like a colossal toad sunning itself in the mud" and will "not grow beautiful with age" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 7/20).
