The story of how the Minnesota Vikings nearly became one of Chiefs’ divisional rivals
Were it not for Max Winter, the Minnesota Vikings might be coming to Arrowhead Stadium each season instead of every eight years.
But six decades ago, Winter changed his mind (or, some would say, stabbed others in the back) and the course of the professional football was altered forever.
Winter was a Minneapolis businessman who in the late 1950s was committed to joining the American Football League, the upstart league formed by Lamar Hunt, the Chiefs founder. The original lineup of cities set to form the AFL in 1960 were Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles and Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
In fact, Minneapolis was considered by some as a cornerstone of the league.
Boston and Buffalo were later added to the mix and the AFL was preparing for its first draft in Minneapolis in 1959 when the NFL tried to disrupt things.
At time of the draft, as Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune recounted in 2015, Winter met with his three fellow AFL investors to discuss an offer from Bears owner George Halas to join the NFL as an expansion team.
“The owners of the local AFL franchise, except for Winter, were satisfied to stay in the AFL, but Winter finally convinced his partners to have a final meeting to decide whether to stay or wait for an NFL franchise,” Hartman wrote.
“The meeting was held at (investor H.P.) Skoglund’s insurance office and it wasn’t until 4 a.m. that Winter finally convinced the group to withdraw.”
Naturally, the other AFL owners, including Hunt, were furious. In his book “When It Was Just A Game,” Harvey Frommer recounted that New York Titans owner Harry Wismer confronted Winter and said, “Nice going Judas.” Wismer then turned to the other AFL owners and said, “Boys, this is the last supper.”
It wasn’t that serious, of course.
But the AFL did need a replacement for Minneapolis, which started play in 1961 as the Minnesota Vikings in the NFL.
The candidates
An Oakland Tribune story on Jan. 4, 1960 reported that four cities were in the running to become the AFL’s eighth team: Oakland, Miami, Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla.
“We have three cities now which enjoy good weather in late fall — Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles — and we are quite anxious to add a fourth in this category,” Hunt told the Tribune.
The Tribune story noted Miami, Atlanta and Jacksonville enjoyed such weather conditions and that formal applications for franchises had been received from Atlanta and Miami.
It was at this point Chargers owner Barron Hilton stepped up and demanded a replacement for Minnesota be placed in California, the Silver and Black blog wrote. The reason: to reduce the Chargers’ operating costs and to create a rivalry.
So Oakland it was, although the Raiders initially played in San Francisco. As we all know now, the Chargers weren’t the only team to become big rivals with the Raiders; the same can be said of the Chiefs and Broncos.
But if Winter had stayed with the AFL, who knows when (or if) the Raiders would have come into existence.
The divisional alignment in that first AFL season had the Houston Oilers, New York Titans (later named the Jets), Buffalo Bills and Boston Patriots in the East Division. In the West Division were the Dallas Texans (who later moved to Kansas City and changed their name to the Chiefs), Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers and Oakland Raiders.
It’s not a stretch to imagine the Minnesota Vikings being in that West Division with the Chiefs. If that had been the case, the Purple People Eaters and not the Silver and Black might have turned the stomachs of Chiefs fans.
It’s a fun what-if in NFL history with the Vikings playing the Chiefs on Sunday, but who knows how things would have played out?
We do know, however, that Hunt got a bit of payback on Winter and the Vikings, as Hartman noted and it wasn’t just the Super Bowl IV victory.
“One way the AFL got even with the NFL was to sign a lot of the top available players,” Hartman wrote, “and the Vikings lost out on Gophers linebacker Bobby Bell when Kansas City outbid Minnesota for his contract.”
