The Vikings are 34-16 in the regular season since 2022, when the Wilfs hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell in the biggest set of changes they’d overseen. The team went 7-1 in its ninth season at U.S. Bank Stadium, the $1.06 billion facility that’s hosted a Super Bowl and men’s Final Four and is still celebrated as one of the NFL’s best, while the state paid off construction bonds for the stadium two decades ahead of schedule. The TCO Performance Center, the team headquarters on 185 acres of the former Northwest Airlines campus in Eagan, was a major reason the Vikings finished first and second in the NFL Players Association’s first two organization report cards in 2023 and 2024. The 2024 survey was the first to rank NFL owners; the Wilfs finished first, as players praised their willingness to invest in the team.
Safety Harrison Smith, in his 13th year with the Vikings, said he’s yet to meet a free agent who signs in Minnesota and isn’t impressed.
“As a player, you can’t ask for a better environment,” Smith said. “And they’re in it to win, which is important. They’re invested, just like us. Playing for a group of owners like that, it permeates throughout the organization.”
It’s helped Vikings fans warm to the owners. who bought the team promising to keep it in Minnesota but knowing it would take action to win the state’s trust.
“Being somebody new from outside the community, we had to prove ourselves, both from the stadium perspective and keeping to our commitments,” Zygi Wilf said. “But we also found it to be a great community to invest in, and we did that in downtown and other parts of the Twin Cities. I think it goes a long way to show not only our commitment to the football team but to the community, through the foundations and our charitable work. We’re very proud of that.”
Said linebacker Chad Greenway, the Vikings’ first draft pick after the Wilfs bought the team: “They’ve done a nice job of really embracing what it is to be a Minnesotan and how important the Vikings are to this state.”