road game of the 2018 NFL regular season for your Minnesota Vikings Laquon Treadwell Jersey , as they’ll make the trip to the Motor City and Ford Field to take on the Detroit Lions. We know that you want to follow all of the action from Detroit on Sunday afternoon, and there are numerous ways for you to do just that. Let’s detail all of those ways right here.Television InfoThis game will be getting underway at the only really proper time for NFL kickoffs, and that’s noon Central time on Sunday afternoon. This game will be on FOX affiliates across the United States, which is KMSP-9 in the Twin Cities area. If you’re wondering whether or not your market is in the primary broadcast area for this one, here is the map from the good folks at 506 Sports. The Vikings/Lions game is represented by the yellow area.If you’re looking for the game on the DirecTV Sunday Ticket package, you’ll want to point the box to Channel 712. The play-by-play for this one will be handled by Chris Myers and Daryl Johnston.For viewers in the United Kingdom, this game will not be shown on any of the regular broadcast outlets for the NFL in your country. You’ll have to use a service like NFL Game Pass to see this one, which will kick off at 6:00 PM UK time.For our men and women in uniform overseas, the folks from AFN have decided that, in the spirit of the holiday season. . .That’s right. . .no live broadcast, no Monday replay, no nothing of this one. I don’t understand how they do that. . .I mean, the Packers/Jets game is at least getting a replay, and that game doesn’t mean squat to anybody.Radio InfoIf you’re not going to be anywhere near a television for this one, you’ll be able to hear the call from Paul Allen and Pete Bercich on the Vikings Radio Network. That link goes to a list of Vikings Radio Network affiliates across the Upper Midwest. See if yours will be carrying the game. There are a couple of other places you can find it online as well, including the TuneIn radio service as well as the KFAN site (if you’re on a desktop or laptop computer only. . .it won’t work on phones or tablets).For those that have satellite radio, you can find the Vikings Radio Network feed on Sirius Channel 106. The game will also be broadcast on XM Channel 231, but be advised that it will be the Lions’ feed, not the Vikings. If you’re using the SiriusXM Online App, the Vikings’ permanent home there is Channel 819.Referee InfoPer the good folks at Football Zebras, Sunday’s game will be officiated by the crew led by Walt Anderson. This will be the first Vikings game of the year for Anderson’s crew. The last time the Vikings saw Walt Anderson was their game against the Los Angeles Rams last season at U.S. Bank Stadium, a game in which they emerged with a 24-7 victory.Weather InfoThe game will be played in the cozy, indoor confines of Ford Field, which means weather won’t be affecting the actual game itself. If you’re planning on tailgating or anything like that before the game, it might get a little messy according to our friends from WeatherNation. They’re showing temperatures leading up to game time right around the freezing point Womens Xavier Rhodes Jersey , with a steady stream of light freezing drizzle. If you’re driving, there’s a good chance that the roads are going to be a mess when it’s time to head home, so be careful.Streaming InfoThere are several other legal subscription services that are available in order to stream the game legally. Among them are Fubo.tv, USTVNow, and Sling TV. If you’re overseas, your best bet is going to be NFL GamePass.Since it has recently been brought up, I want to make it perfectly clear that streams from Reddit or other places are not. . .I repeat, not. . .legal. If you’d like to argue about that, you can argue it somewhere else, because the moderators won’t listen to that garbage. Until Reddit, or anywhere else, has a deal with the National Football League, those streams are illegal and not welcome to be put up on this site. If you want to use them, go find them on your own and don’t be plastering them in the comments section here unless you’d rather not be in the comments of the Game Thread. . .or any other thread. . .here at DN.That should be all of the information you need in order to keep track of all the action from Ford Field between the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions on Sunday afternoon. We’ll have our Open Thread for the first quarter up about an hour before kickoff or so, and we hope that you’ll join us here for all of the fun! Kyle Rudolph is now in his ninth season with the Minnesota Vikings, the team that drafted him in 2011. He’s had a stable career with just that franchise, but he was involved in at least one significant trade.In his father’s fantasy football keeper league.“My dad actually did not draft me when I came out,” Rudolph said. “One of his buddies did, and my dad traded for me, so I’m on his team to this day.”The image of a father rooting on his son because of the fantasy implications is amusing to think about, but Rudolph’s endearing anecdote may be reasonably common nowadays. The 29-year-old tight end is part of a generation of players who grew up as fantasy leagues were becoming part of the mainstream sports culture in America.No discussion of the modern NFL and its popularity is complete without acknowledging this phenomenon — in which fans all over the country compete for championships of their own as owners of virtual franchises.“I think it’s probably, as an offensive skill player, the most common thing that you hear out in public: ‘Hey, I had you on my fantasy team last year,’ or Ben Gedeon Jersey , ‘Hey, I have you on my fantasy team this year,'” Rudolph said. “Fans are all about it, and it’s really changed kind of the landscape of the sports fan.”From 2007 to 2017, the number of people playing fantasy football more than tripled, from 13.8 million to 42.7 million, according to the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association. This past Sunday, ESPN’s fantasy app drew 8.3 million unique users — its biggest day ever — according to ESPN and Adobe Analytics.Networks, websites and even NFL teams all seem to understand the draw of fantasy leagues, and their importance to fans watching at home and in stadiums.“Anything that’s good for overall NFL fandom is good for the individual clubs,” said Emily Griffin, vice president of marketing for the Detroit Lions. “We consistently hear from (fans): ‘We want more fantasy stats, we want more out-of-town scores.'”When Rudolph describes his father’s league, it sounds almost prehistoric compared to the internet-powered drafts and stat trackers of today.“They started playing in 1979 when they were seniors in high school,” he said. “Obviously at that time, you don’t have computers and internet, you get the scores on TV afterward and get the newspaper to get the box scores, and it was points only. So it didn’t matter how many catches, how many yards, how many carries. … It’s a keeper league, so my dad had played since 1979 and had Dan Marino for his whole career, Peyton Manning for his whole career.”Rudolph says his dad’s league still keeps score by hand, but the internet has obviously revolutionized the way many people follow their fantasy leagues and research players.“There were certain things that, just, the internet was made for www.thevikingslockerroom.com/authentic-m...sie-alexander-jersey ,” said Rob Phythian, a co-founder of Fanball, which began producing the magazine Fantasy Football Weekly in 1993. “The internet was made for league management, right? It was a natural.”Phythian identified three turning points in the growth of fantasy football.“The first one was, I think we can take some credit for improving the content to make it more current. The second one’s league management online,” Phythian said. “The third was the leagues and the big marketing channels embracing fantasy. That came later, it didn’t come first. It came, I would say, 2003ish, where they finally gave up on saying that it’s gambling and understood it was like office pool on steroids, really.”Now that sports betting is legal and operating in nearly a dozen states, the next innovations may blur the line a bit between that and fantasy sports.“What I think is coming next is we’re going to see hybrid fantasy-gambling products in the marketplace,” said Paul Charchian, president of the FSGA. “As the gambling companies realize that there’s 50 million Americans that know and love fantasy, and that they want something that’s a player-based outcome for sports betting, and so I think that’s a huge area of potential growth.”The growth so far has already been substantial, and that’s evident every weekend during the season. A sports bar on an NFL Sunday might include several different kinds of fans. Some might be watching their favorite team, and some might just be glancing from TV to TV, looking for their fantasy players. Some might be trying to do both.“The generation before ours, you were a fan of whatever team or wherever you lived or wherever you watched,” Rudolph said. “Now people are growing up being just fans of players because they have them on their fantasy team, and it’s amazing how fantasy has really changed the landscape in sports.”