Why are Vikings fans taking over opposing stadiums?

Will they do it in Seattle?

© Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

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By Matthew Coller

EAGAN — When lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan Donovan Driscoll’s son Trevor was seven years old, he decided it was time for the boy to attend his first NFL game. Living in Southern California, they drove up to San Francisco to see the 49ers. Shortly after that, Donovan and Trevor went to another game in San Diego. They decided that they would make it a goal to see a game in every NFL stadium. That was 21 years ago. This Sunday the duo will arrive in Seattle to support the Vikings in their first ever trip to Lumen Field.

Mr. Driscoll and his son are not likely to be the only ones sporting purple and gold in the stands that once became famous for cheering a Marshawn Lynch run so loudly that they registered an earthquake on the Richter scale. In recent years, Lumen Field has gone from the home of the “12” to a destination for opposing fans to helicopter in and reduce the oft-talked-about home-field advantage.

“I hope Seattle is one of the places where they are good fans and they know a lot about the game but they don’t hate us and recognize that we have it in common that we both love football,” Driscoll said.

The Seahawk fans might be a little ornery this week considering the events of last week’s Sunday Night Football game. The Seahawks played against the Packers and “Go, Pack, Go!” chants were so loud that they could be easily heard on the broadcast to the level that it became a talking point for color analyst Cris Collinsworth.

After the game, Seattle wide receiver DK Metcalf expressed frustration at the overwhelming amount of road fans.

“I looked around and there was a lot of Green Bay fans,” Metcalf said. “So, they did a great job traveling, but I wish the 12s didn’t sell as many tickets as they did to make sure we kept the home-field advantage.”

Vikings fans have turned the purple takeover into an art form in recent years. In places like Nashville, Los Angeles and Jacksonville, the split appeared to be at least 50-50, if not leaning in the favor of the road travelers. Head coach Kevin O’Connell said that even the team was surprised at one point by how many fans joined them in their journey, causing communication issues.

“We had a situation come up this year where it ended up being a little bit more crowd noise than maybe we thought,” O’Connell said on Friday.

Driscoll, who grew up in East Grand Forks and has followed the Vikings since the 70s, has seen a massive shift in road attendance since he and his son first set out to visit all the NFL cities.

“The fans that I saw in the early days were really the most rabid of Vikings fans,” Driscoll said. “I met a guy in Nashville who had been to every game. He missed like one game for a funeral for the last 20 years, it was crazy. It was more those types of people, the quieter minority at the game. Over the last eight years, definitely there have been way more takeovers.”

Donovan Driscoll and his son Trevor are traveling to Seattle

In his travels, Driscoll has had many conversations with other Vikings fans about the growing “traveling party” that follows the team around like roadies with a band. The going theory on why it seems to increase every year is that there are a lot of folks who saw that others doing it and decided to join in.

“I have talked to a number of other fans about going on [road trips] and a lot of them, kind of like I did, just decided it was something to do and they were going to go to more road games,” Driscoll said. “Then it takes on a life of its own. When you start to take over stadiums, there’s a source of pride from Vikings fans. You take pride in the fact that we’re making it harder for the other team and, in a small way, contributing to the success of the team.”

It was also a lot more difficult 21 years ago to book flights, hotels and score tickets to road stadiums. For his Seattle trip, Driscoll bought tickets online with ease and scooped up a hotel called the Silver Cloud where he and Trevor will be able to wander over to the game. It will take him longer to put on all his Vikings gear at the hotel than it did to book the trip.

“With tickets it used to be much more of an undertaking,” Driscoll said. “I used to print out these goofy paper tickets and hope they were not counterfeit. It’s easier now to have a high level of confidence.”

Driscoll is hoping to see another fan takeover in Seattle, despite becoming a storyline in city and the fact that the Seahawks desperately need a win to hang around in the playoff race.

“If the Vikings get out to an early lead like their recipe for the first few games of the season, then I think it’s going to be a tough day for Seattle fans,” he said. “Vikings fans will get brazen early and start dialing it up.”

Not all of Driscoll’s road experiences have ended with Vikings fans dialing it up. In particular, he and Trevor decided the NFC Championship was a good time for his first visit to Philadelphia.

“We went to the NFC Championship game to check off Philadelphia from our list and it was brutal,” Driscoll said. “We thought Oakland might be tough but Oakland was a bunch of pussycats compared to Philly. We got beers thrown at us, ice thrown out of coolers, little old ladies dropping F bombs, it was really something.”

Driscoll is expecting a close game in Seattle but he thinks the Vikings will win. No matter how many times he has seen things go wrong in the 50ish years of watching them, his optimism hasn’t been extinguished. If they win in Seattle, he will plan another trip to a stadium he hasn’t visited yet in Detroit with hopes of seeing the Vikings take the NFC North.

“I have absolutely loved this season,” Driscoll said. Though he did admit that he had a chance during a visit to Nevada to put $1,000 on the Vikings to win more than seven games and hesitated.

Sean Marthis, a 38-year-old fan who takes yearly Vikings road trips with his friends, spent eight years in Washington while he was in the Navy. He had an up close view of the rise of the Seattle stadium noise lore.

“They have this national notoriety that it’s a great place to play but having been there the fan support is hot and cold based on how well the team is doing,” Marthis said.

Marthis first started going to Seahawks games around 2007 because he got free tickets and had a friend who could get him on the field for the pregame flag ceremony. At that point, the ‘12’ thing received more snarky comments than pride, he said.

“Right after BeastQuake they got really good….the bandwagon was running pretty heavy at that point…it can get really loud there when the team is rolling and they are kicking ass but I’ll be curious what the atmosphere is like now because Geno Smith is hit and miss and their line is not good and the Legion of Boom is gone,” Marthis said. “There would be games when that era was starting to tail off and the enthusiasm had dropped drastically. Based off the Vikes being so good this year and the Seahawks and NFC West are mediocre it’s not surprising to me that there’s a potential takeover.”

Earlier this year, Marthis was part of a Viking fan takeover in Nashville. He cracked that the city looked like Grimace was splattered all over it because there was so much purple. He and his friends decided not to wear their gear out on the town the night before and then regretted it because everyone was in Vikings jerseys.

“It was almost all purple and yellow, it was like a big party,” he said.

Marthis does not expect Seattle fans that keep their tickets to be as accommodating as in Nashville.

“Fans in Tennessee are different than a lot of the Seahawk fans so there might be a slight difference,” said Marthis, who now lives in San Diego. “Titans fans are very welcoming and their team hasn’t been good for a while so they were like, ‘we are going to get creamed so we deserve to have our stadium taken over,’ but from living in Seattle it’s not as hospitable environment.”

Sean Marthis (right) takes a yearly trip to see the Vikings

Still, Marthis said he won’t be the least bit surprised if Vikings fans fill the seats of Lumen Field. And he agrees with Driscoll that if the Vikings can get ahead early, they can take the crowd out of the game.

“I think some of the apathy will set in,” he said.

For him, there are several main factors in the takeovers. One of them is the fact that season ticket holders can make up for the ever-rising costs of prices by selling some games on the secondary market, making it very easy for opposing fans. Another part is the way the NFL is presenting its games through their own marketing.

“You can tell that the NFL has tried to make games more of an experience and travel destination….you see ticket packages coupled with airfare or hotel reservations,” Marthis said. “That wasn’t really a thing back in the day. I come from a big sports family and we would go on couple vacations with sporting events so this isn’t new to me but I used to get looked at like I was crazy going to a sporting event for vacation but now that’s more engrained in the fan experience.”

Another part of the sheer volume of Viking fans getting into planes each road weekend that can’t be ignored is that the team is almost always competitive. Even if they haven’t been 12-2 every season, they are rarely at the bottom of the NFL, meaning road games are a fairly safe bet for meaningful football.

“It’s much worse for some other fan bases,” Marthis said. “I understand the logic of tanking and things like that but I love that the ownership wants to win and is always trying because that is the goal….you see a lot of people traveling because the team is always good and that stems from the ownership group.”

Marthis is a little more skeptical of this team than Driscoll about their chances but he only expected around a .500 team this season so everything else is gravy.

The Vikings aren’t exactly looking at it that way. They see the possibility of winning out and taking the No. 1 seed in the NFC. They know that any amount of assistance that they can get from their own fans will help.

“There's nothing that brings our guys more joy than seeing purple all over the stadium and that's welcome to us and our traveling party to have a few folks join us out to Seattle for sure,” O’Connell said.

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