Fans greet the Minnesota Vikings mascot outside Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Oct. 6. The Vikings beat the New York Jets 23-17. (Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of commentary online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

The art of celebrating prematurely often comes with painful consequences. Fans of the storied Minnesota Vikings franchise know that timeless lesson better than most.

Fresh off a win over the New York Jets in London this past Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings are 5-0 headed into this weekend’s bye week. That early season achievement warrants a cautious but subtle tip of the hat.

The Kansas City Chiefs, 4-0, who were to play the New Orleans Saints on Monday night, were the only other undefeated team in the 2024 National Football League season after Sunday. We‘ll know by Tuesday (but not as of this writing) whether the Vikings stand alone.

We’ve been here before. That’s why so many Vikings fans now allow superstition to govern their gameday behavior as they also studiously avoid anything that might summon a jinx. But here is another reality well worth celebrating: A winning football team is good for more than a pleasant start to each new week. Such a franchise also appears to be good for the economy and the branding of a metropolitan region.

It’s more than anecdotal. Here’s one way of looking at a winning Vikings’ trickle-down effect:

Approximately 40% of Vikings season-ticket holders are people outside of the metropolitan region, according to figures the team has shared with Meet Minneapolis. That means that tens of thousands of people who come to Vikings home games are descending on the Twin Cities for the game but are also in search of hospitality, including restaurants, bars, hotel rooms and other forms of entertainment. That’s a lot of money creating lots of jobs for lots of families.

Minnesota remains a vibrant hotbed for the business of sports. This past season, we saw how the Timberwolves’ deep playoff run made them the talk of the region and the nation, as they helped fill downtown — not to mention Target Center — to the rafters with NBA fans. The same goes for the Lynx franchise, which continues to be among the best in class of the WNBA.

Now, the Vikings are once again the talk of the state, nation and, indeed, the world, coming off a win over the Jets across the ocean. This is good not only for the franchise — but for Minnesota.

”There has been past economic research that links an NFL team’s winning percentage with real per capita income in the hometown,” said Sean O’Neil, director of economic development at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

”What is clear is that the Vikings and our other professional sports teams play a critical role in the overall vitality of our downtowns, and this has never been more important as the region continues to recover from the impact of the pandemic and its aftermath. It is safe to say that a winning Vikings is a win for the local economy one way or another, and we’ll take whatever wins we can get.”

Amen to that.

It would be absurdly premature to now break out a statewide orchestra of Gjallarhorns, especially given the way the 2016 season turned out after a 5-0 start. However, it is not too soon to cautiously bask in the early season glow that a winning football team creates for fans and cash registers in kind.