Bringing up back (somewhat) on topic, this MinnPost article lists 19 Fortune 500 companies from Minnesota. Note that this list doesn't include Cargill and other private companies.
http://www.minnpost.com/twin-cities-bus ... -move-rank
• 17: UnitedHealth Group, Inc.
• 36: Target Corporation
• 61: Best Buy Company, Inc.
• 69: CHS, Inc.
• 86: Supervalu, Inc.
• 101: 3M Company
• 132: U.S. Bancorp
• 169: General Mills, Inc.
• 172: Medtronic, Inc.
• 194: Land O’Lakes
• 229: Ecolab, Inc.
• 237: C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.
• 246: The Mosaic Company
• 263: Ameriprise Financial, Inc.
• 266: Xcel Energy, Inc.
• 319: Hormel Foods Corporation
• 325: Thrivent Financial for Lutherans
• 457: St. Jude Medical, Inc.
• 500: Nash Finch Company
Typically naming rights tend to go to companies that deal with everyday customers, so you could be looking at stores (Target, Best Buy, Supervalu), products (3M, General Mills, Land O'Lakes, Hormel), banks and financial/insurance companies (UnitedHealth, U.S. Bank, Ameriprise, Thrivent), utilities (Xcel Energy), and telecom (none). I guess there's a chance that a company like Medtronic, Ecolab or St. Jude, who don't sell directly to the public, might want to boost their public standing, a la Lucas Oil.
That said, you can cut quite a few names out right away. Target and Xcel Energy seem like long shots given their existing naming rights deals in the city. Thrivent can go, as can St. Jude and probably Supervalu. I have a hard time seeing an ag company like Land O'Lakes or Hormel signing up, but I'll leave General Mills on board since they are higher profile and a slightly different market. And while UnitedHealth is certainly at no shortage of expendable income, I just can't see a health insurance company going over well (MetLife Stadium being kind of the exception, although State Farm and Allstate have naming rights on second-tier stadiums).
For now we will take Lester Bagley's quote to be binding, eliminating the possibility of Wells Fargo, Delta, Cargill and others.
So that leaves us with:
• 61: Best Buy Company, Inc.
• 101: 3M Company
• 132: U.S. Bancorp
• 169: General Mills, Inc.
• 172: Medtronic, Inc.
• 229: Ecolab, Inc.
• 263: Ameriprise Financial, Inc.
Verdict: All of this writing was probably a waste of time, because U.S. Bank seems like an odds-on favorite based solely on the fact that it's a big, local bank. Banks and other financial institutions are easily the most well represented businesses in these naming rights deals, and U.S. Bank doesn't have it's name on another major stadium.
Best Buy, 3M and Medtronic are three of the highest-profile companies in the Twin Cities, but Best Buy hasn't bit on other high-profile naming rights in town (not to mention the restructuring and uncertain future), and 3M and Medtronic (and Ecolab, for that matter) would be outliers in the naming-rights fraternity.
Random Thought: We are lucky in that none of the realistic options for this stadium are terribly tacky, like Qwicken Loans Arena. Even U.S. Bank, for being a bank, is so sterile that it doesn't sound weird. That said, it could be cool if General Mills bought the rights but named the stadium after its Pillsbury brand. Besides having its roots in Minneapolis, Pillsbury is a major national brand and also the name of an influential family in state history. So, in theory, it could be a win-win-win.
I doubt it's realistic, unfortunately. I can't think of another stadium named after a brand rather than the parent company, and General Mills would get more "bang for the buck" just putting its own name on the stadium. A General Mills Field wouldn't be terrible, and we could call it the Cheerio, but I kind of like the idea of Pillsbury since it would be like naming the stadium after a dignitary, even though it's actually a brand. We would have just a tiny slice of dignity over our friends like the University of Phoenix Stadium.