With the XFL relaunching in 2020, Bruce Prichard recently spent some time talking about an interesting Vince McMahon football story during an episode of his Something To Wrestle With Podcast. Prichard recalled the time McMahon nearly purchased The NFL’s Minnesota Vikings franchise, coincidentally enough, this happened a little over a year before he would go on to launch The XFL for the first time.
Vince McMahon has expanded his business ventures a couple of times in the past. Whether Vince got into bodybuilding, movies, or becoming a restauranteur, professional wrestling has always been the McMahon Family’s bread and butter. McMahon famously got involved with pro football when he created his own league and with The XFL’s impending revival it looks like we’ll be getting more McMahon-owned gridiron action soon enough. However, things could have been much different if The Chairman Of The Board would have made a pretty large purchase two decades ago.
When word got out that The Minnesota Vikings were for sale, they entertained a few offers. 1998 was an important year for The Vikings franchise as well when Randall Cunningham had his best season as quarterback and an incredibly promising rookie named Randy Moss became a star wide receiver. As it turns out, McMahon was well aware of The Vikings possibly being up for purchase and he was looking at taking a leap into the world of professional football. Some have even theorized the fact that since McMahon didn’t purchase The Minnesota Vikings, that may might have spawned a much deeper interest in pro football because The XFL was launched the following year.
“We didn’t know what the hell he was talking about,” Bruce Prichard admitted on Something To Wrestle With while discussing McMahon’s interest in purchasing The Minnesota Vikings. “More than anything it was a publicity stunt because they were floating out there that the Vikings were up for sale and Vince floated it out there that he was interested in it. I dare say that if the price would have been right he might have bought the damn thing for publicity purposes to make it — okay the WWF just bought the Minnesota Vikings and Vince McMahon is now entering the football arena. So it worked, it got people talking.”
Although The Vikings might have been worth more The WWF at the time, Prichard said that he was confident McMahon could have raised the funds if he wanted to. Co-host Conrad Thompson also noted how funny it would have been if McMahon and company purchased The Minnesota Vikings in 1998 because if history would have played out the same way, Brock Lesnar would have still left The WWE in 2004 to try out for McMahon’s NFL team.
You can check out the entire episode of Bruce Prichard’s Something To Wrestle With Podcast featuring the discussion on Vince McMahon’s interest to purchase The Minnesota Vikings at MLWRadio.com.
