The inaugural season for the Minnesota Twins playing at Target Field is a good education tool for the effort to build a new home for the Minnesota Vikings.

No matter what happens, the debate will be enriched by what fans, elected officials and bureaucrats will have learned by experiencing Target Field.

Some of the lessons learned about modern stadiums are:

♦ Better seating results in a better fan experience. It sure is nice to have the seats facing the action, rather than merely straight forward.

♦ Ingress and egress work much better when the stadium isn’t built like a fort. Target Field interacts well with the neighborhood it is in.

♦ Stadiums get used year-round, not just for the pro team that plays there. They bring in big-revenue events. Ford Field, home of the hapless Detroit Lions, brings in many events from the Frozen Four to big NCAA men’s basketball games.

Finally, we want to add this: Many business and community leaders in the Twin Cities worked hard in the 20th century to make the place a four-sports city. It would be a shame if the existing leaders — Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Minnesota Chamber of Commerce President David Olson, for starters — left their legacy of being the guys who lost the Vikings.