Sports in Minneapolis–Saint Paul

Since the 1930s, the Golden Gophers have won national championships in baseball, boxing, football, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, indoor and outdoor track, swimming, and wrestling.[14]

Minneapolis has hosted the 1951 NCAA Men's Division I Final Four, 1992 NCAA Men's Division I Final Four, 2001 NCAA Men's Division 1 Final Four and the 2019 NCAA Men's Division I Final Four as well as the 1995 NCAA Women's Division I Final Four.[15] The Women's Final Four will return in 2022.

ESPN called Target Field, the Minnesota Twins' new home, "the #1 stadium experience in major league baseball".[16]

Tribal Nations Plaza at TCF Bank Stadium, a gift of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community who donated $14.5 million to the University of Minnesota, the largest gift in Gopher athletics history

The Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, was the largest sports stadium in Minnesota from 1982 to 2013, and the only stadium in the country to have hosted a Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the NCAA Basketball Men's Final Four. Demolition started in January 2014 to make way for a new 65,000 seat clear roofed stadium for the Vikings which opened in August 2016.[17]

U.S. Bank Stadium was completed in August 2016, six spectator sport stadiums will be in a 1.2-mile (2 km) radius centered downtown, counting the existing facilities at Target Center and the university's Williams Arena and Mariucci Arena.[18] Target Field is funded by the Twins and 75% by Hennepin County sales tax, about $25 per year by each taxpayer.[19] The Gopher football program's Huntington Bank Stadium was built by the university and the state's general fund.[19] And the $1.061 billion U.S. Bank Stadium for the Vikings is funded by the Vikings ($563 million), State of Minnesota ($348 million) and the City of Minneapolis ($150 million).[20]

Minneapolis has made it to the international round finals to host the Summer Olympic Games three times, being beaten by London in 1948, Helsinki in 1952 (when the city finished in second place), and Melbourne in 1956.

Minneapolis hosted the 1998 World Figure Skating Championships.[21]

Gifted amateur athletes have played in Minneapolis schools, notably starting in the 1920s and 1930s at Central, DeLaSalle, and Marshall high schools.[22]

Professional sports are well-established in Minneapolis. First playing in 1884, the Minneapolis Millers baseball team produced the best won-lost record in their league at the time and contributed fifteen players to the Baseball Hall of Fame. During the 1920s, Minneapolis was home to the NFL team the Minneapolis Marines, later known as the Minneapolis Red Jackets.[23] During the 1940s and 1950s the Minneapolis Lakers basketball team, the city's first in the major leagues in any sport, won six basketball championships in three leagues to become the NBA's first dynasty before moving to Los Angeles in 1960.[22]

The National Hockey League arrived to the Twin Cities in 1967, as the Minnesota North Stars became one of six expansion franchises to join the league. Due to its lack of success and financial difficulties, the team moved to Dallas, Texas in 1993.

The American Wrestling Association, formerly the NWA Minneapolis Boxing & Wrestling Club, operated in Minneapolis from 1960 until the 1990s.[24]

Pro soccer first came to Minnesota in 1976, when the Minnesota Kicks entered the North American Soccer League (1968–84), though the team folded in 1981. In 1994 pro soccer returned to the state after a thirteen-year absence, when the Minnesota Thunder gained entry into the upper level of the United Soccer League, which at the time held tier two classification from the United States Soccer Federation. The team enjoyed some league success, but folded due to financial difficulties in 2009. Manny Lagos, current sporting director at Minnesota United, was a celebrated Thunder player.

After the Thunder folded, a team owned by the National Sports Center called the NSC Minnesota Stars competed in the USSF Division 2 Professional League for the 2010 season, and, after the National Sports Center relinquished ownership in 2011, in the new North American Soccer League as Minnesota Stars FC, this time under the ownership of the North American Soccer League itself. Then, in late 2012, the club was purchased by former UnitedHealth CEO Bill McGuire, who rebranded the club under the name Minnesota United FC. Under McGuire's ownership, the club entered a new era of financial stability and on-field success.[25][26]