In 1969, the NFL's Minnesota Vikings played a regular season game on October 5 against the Green Bay Packers at Memorial Stadium.

[2] The Minnesota Kicks soccer team of the NASL played once at Memorial Stadium, a 1981 playoff game on September 6 against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers and lost 3–0.

Ancel Keys founded the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene underneath Memorial Stadium, on the ground floor accessed at Gate 27.

Pressured by downtown Minneapolis business interests and athletic boosters, the school elected to move out of the stadium to the new Metrodome, about two miles (3 km) away, during the spring of 1982.

[5] New head coach Lou Holtz gave an impassioned speech when the time came in 1984 to decide whether to remain at the Metrodome, and declared that "Athletes want to play at the Dome.

"[5] Following the move, the University of Minnesota proposed a new natatorium that would extend into the field at the open end of the horseshoe and ensure that there could be no return to Memorial Stadium.

The move to the Metrodome proved to be a dismal failure in the long run, as Gophers home games lost the charm of being on a college campus.