Minnesota Sports in the 21st Century

The 21^st century is thought of today as a time of deep political division, of terrorist attacks, of never-ending war in Afghanistan and Iraq, of the great economic recession of 2008 through 2010, and the coronavirus of 2020. Someone said, May you live in interesting times. It was not meant as best wishes. And, indeed, we have lived in interesting times these past 20 years or so. But, fortunately, the world of Minnesota sports did not take its cues from the outside world. Our sports have been interesting, but in a good way. Minnesota sports have thrived in the 21^st century

For the second time in its short history, Minnesota turned the corner into a new century in 2000. In 100 years time, Minnesota’s population had increased almost three-fold to 4.9 million, and yet Minnesota had fallen from the 19^th to the 21^st largest of the United States. How much had the world changed in 100 years? In 1900, Minnesota had a quarter-million more population than California. In 2000, California had almost seven times more people than Minnesota. Meanwhile, Minneapolis and St. Paul had a total population of 360,000 in 1900, which, if combined, would have made them the eighth largest city in America. By 2000, they had almost doubled to 670,000 but, if combined, would only be the 16^th largest city in the country. 

Yet, in 1900, the Twin Cities and Minnesota were not considered to be “big league.” Of course, the only “big league” at that time was baseball’s National League (NL), and Minnesota did not have a National League (that is, a “major league”) baseball (MLB) team. Everything else, all the other “big leagues,” came later—the NBA, the NFL, the National Hockey League (NHL), even the American League (AL). Minnesota didn’t have a big league team of any kind, by today’s definition, until the Minneapolis Lakers came to town in 1947. But, Minnesotans in 1947 might have been excused for not knowing that the NBA was “big league” because, well, it wasn’t. The Lakers playoff opponents those first two or three years included the Anderson, IN, Packers; the Fort Wayne, IN, Pistons; and the Rochester, NY, Royals. (California got its first big league team, the San Francisco 49ers of the All-American Football League (AAFL), just one year earlier in 1946.)

Not surprisingly, California now has a total of 20 teams in the big leagues, while Minnesota has seven. And, yet, Minnesota entered the 21^st century as indisputably big league or, in the parlance of the day, “bigley,” with MLB (Minnesota Twins), NFL football (Minnesota Vikings), NBA basketball (Minnesota Timberwolves), NHL hockey (Minnesota Wild), Major League Soccer (MLS) (Minnesota United), Women’s NBA (WNBA) basketball (Minnesota Lynx) and even a National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) franchise (Minnesota Whitecaps). Believe it or not, there is not a single city anywhere in the United States aside from Minnesota’s Twin Cities that has a franchise in all of these seven professional sports leagues. Most of the bigger cities run afoul of the women’s hockey league, of course, but Boston, which has an NWHL franchise, lacks a WNBA team. It is true, however, that Minnesota lacks a team in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and so we share the national lead with franchises in seven of these eight professional leagues.

Thanks to Minnesota’s professional women’s teams, the Lynx and the Whitecaps, Minnesota has crept into the top ten in professional championships nationwide. With the exception of Los Angeles, all of the other top ten cities had a championship long before Minnesota had a major league franchise. Yet, we now have 13 championship teams—five by the Lakers, four by the Lynx, two by the Twins, and one each for the Vikings (in 1969, before the merger of the old American Football League [AFL] and the NFL) and the Whitecaps. Believe it or not, we’re tied with Green Bay, where of course the Packers account for all 13 of their titles. 

Table 1: Top 10 Cities by Professional Championships

City	MLB	NBA	NFL, AFL	NHL	MLS	WNBA	NWHL	NWSL	Total
New York	35	2	9	8					54
Boston	10	17	6	6			1		40
Chicago	7	6	11	6	1				31
Detroit	5	3	4	11		3			26
Los Angeles	5	11	2	2	5		3		23
Philadelphia	7	4	5	2					18
Pittsburgh	5		6	5					16
St. Louis	13	1	1	1					16
Washington	2	1	5	1	4	1			14
Green Bay			13						13
Minnesota	2	5	1			4	1		13

Not only that, but Minnesota’s status as “bigley” has been cemented in other ways, at least for the time being. MLB and the Minnesota Twins proposed abolishing the franchise in 2001 as a ploy to force Minnesota to pony up the money for a new baseball stadium. Minnesota successfully resisted contraction, but the strategy worked and Target Field was opened in 2010. The Minnesota Vikings had threatened to leave Minnesota behind around 1997 and the threat continued to hang over us until U.S. Bank Stadium was opened in 2016. Target Center, home of the Timberwolves, was substantially remodeled in 2017. New facilities were built for the Minnesota Wild in 2000 and Minnesota United in 2019. Being big league in the 21^st century means spending vast amounts of money and so we did—somewhere between $2 and $2.5 billion on our new sports palaces, $1 billion on the Vikings’ stadium alone.

The new stadiums brought some of sports’ biggest events to Minnesota. U.S. Bank Stadium hosted the Super Bowl in 2018 (won by the Philadelphia Eagles over the New England Patriots 41-33) and the NCAA Final Four in 2019 (won by Virginia over Texas Tech 85-77). The Xcel Center hosted the NHL all-state game in 2004 and the NCAA Frozen Four in 2002, 2011 and 2018 (won by Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth and Minnesota-Duluth again). Target Field hosted the baseball all-star game in 2014. 

Turning to college sports, we would argue that Minnesota was always “big league” going back to 1900. As we said, major league baseball was the only big league there was at the time. “Big league” was a pretty narrow concept. A more reasonable definition of big league in 1900 might have been playing against national competition. That qualified Minnesota as big league, with the Minnesota Gophers as Exhibit A. They competed nationally. They competed for national championships as early as 1902 and 1903. 

Now, 100 years later, many sports fans remain fixated on the struggles of Minnesota Gopher basketball and football, but the larger truth is that Gopher athletics have turned a corner. In the 20^th century, the Gophers consistently won less than their fair share of Big 10 titles, which would have been one in ten. Now, as the Big 10 expanded to 14 teams and a fair share might be as little as seven percent of the available titles (one of 14), the Gophers are winning twice that. The men have won 39 out of 240 conference titles (16 percent), while the women have won 35 (15 percent). The men have won six national championships in 20 years, and the women seven. That’s a national championship every 1.5 years. There were a total of 14 in the 20^th century, or one every seven years. There are now twice as many teams as there were prior to Title IX, but the national titles are coming twice now as they did in the previous century. 

The results among Minnesota’s smaller colleges are similar. In 1974, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) split into Divisions I, II and III (familiarly D1, D2 and D3). It took awhile but Minnesota’s D2 and D3 schools have competed nationally quite well. National finalists are shown in Table 2. Boldface indicates a national champion, regular type indicates a runnerup.

Table 2: Minnesota’s D2 and D3 National Finalists

Sport	D2 Men	D2 Women	D3 Men	D3 Women
Baseball	Winona 2011, Mankato 2013		St. Thomas 1999, 2000, 2001, 2009
Basketball	Winona 2006, 2007, 2008	Mankato 2009	Gustavus 2003,  St. Thomas 2011, 2016	Concordia (Moorhead) 1988, St. Thomas 1991, St. Ben’s 1999
Football	UMD 2008, 2010, Mankato 2014, 2019		St. John’s 1976, 2000, 2003, St. Thomas 2012, 2015
Golf			Gustavus 1990, 1991, 1992, 2004, St. John’s 2007, 2008	Concordia (Moorhead) 2000, 2001, Gustavus 2006, 2010, 2011
Ice Hockey	Mankato 1979, 1980, Bemidji 1983, 1984, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997		Bemidji 1985, 1986, Mankato 1991,  St. Thomas 2000, 2005, Gustavus 2009	Hamline 2019
Soccer				Macalester 1999
Softball		Mankato 2017		St. Mary’s 2000, St. Thomas 2004, 2005, 2006
Tennis		Gustavus 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984		Gustavus 1990, 1991, 1993
Volleyball		Concordia (St. Paul) 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017 SW Minnesota State 2014		St. Thomas 2012
Wrestling	Mankato 1965, 1967, 1994, 2008 St. Cloud 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019		Augsburg 1984, 1990, 1991,1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019

Overall, then, yes, Minnesota sports are more interesting than ever before. These are the best of times. Of course, in order to draw such a conclusion, one has to look beyond America’s favorite sports and Minnesota’s favorite sports teams. These are not the best of times for the Twins and the Vikings. That was 1987 and 1991 and the 1970s. These are not the best of times for Gopher football or basketball or hockey. That was the 1930s and 1919 and the 1970s. But, if one is ready, willing and able to get on board with Minnesota Gopher baseball, women’s hockey, softball and volleyball; to cheer on the Lynx and the Whitecaps; and to enjoy the success of Augsburg wrestling and Concordia volleyball and St. Thomas University, generally, then, yes, Minnesota sports are not just bigger, they’re better. It’s just a matter of knowing a bandwagon when you see one, and climbing aboard.