Why NY Super Bowl shouldn't leave you cold
Neil Best says hosting the Super Bowl in New York would bring some buzz to a two-week run-up that has become predictable and dull. Credit: AP, 2007
The Super Bowl clearly ain't broke. So why would the NFL try to fix it?
Partly because it realizes, correctly, that even the most powerful, durable brands must combat staleness in our fickle culture. (Remember when "American Idol'' finales riveted the nation?)
By approving New Meadowlands Stadium's bid for 2014 - barring an epic upset - in Dallas today, the owners will embed guaranteed intrigue four years into the future. Or, to put it more succinctly: New York/New Jersey = buzz. Tampa = zzz.
The NFL Network has been touting live, 90-minute coverage surrounding the announcement, with a host, two analysts and three reporters, one for each bidding city. Funny, I don't recall that sort of show for last year's news that New Orleans would host the 2013 Super Bowl.
As they should, the bidders are embracing the unusualness. Said Jets owner Woody Johnson: "We'll be lucky if it snows.''
There is another element to all of this, one mostly unseen (and uncared about) by the 100-million-plus who watch on TV.
Super Bowl week is an annual convention for everyone in and around the NFL, as well as a festival of marketing for companies and products aimed at American males. Part of the appeal of New York's bid is that instead of another predictable week in a predictable city, the party would move to the center of the universe.
Don't underestimate that as a factor. Many of those fortunate enough to attend Super Bowls do so on a regular basis, including the 32 guys who get to vote on bids. Anything to alter a formula that hasn't changed much in 25 years potentially is welcome.
Well, almost anything. When an ice storm hit Atlanta the week of the 2000 Super Bowl, it generated grumbling on a Super Bowl scale. But if the same thing happened in Manhattan, it would be greeted by a shrug.
The people behind the bid have noted that great games have been played in the cold, including perhaps the most famous of all: the 1958 NFL Championship Game, in the Bronx.
Eli Manning grew up in one of the Super Bowl's favorite stops, New Orleans. He showed he got the point when he said recently, "It's an opportunity to play a game that looks a little different. Every Super Bowl, everybody's in short sleeves, everybody's in a dome or sunny weather.''
But that hasn't stopped some in short-sleeves country from lamenting the big city's pending win.
"Unless reason prevails,'' Tampa Tribune columnist Ira Kaufman wrote, "a group of wealthy, powerful NFL owners is about to be led down a slushy path by a commissioner determined to reward New York for building a new home for the Giants and Jets.''
Boo hoo. Yo, Ira, tell us how reason prevailed in 2001, when the Gasparilla festival and Super Bowl were in Tampa, leading to the Super Bowl of traffic jams. Alas, taking the subway was not an option.
Kaufman was right about one thing: Modern Super Bowls usually are a reward for erecting stadiums. And in this case, there is the added incentive of finally enticing a naming-rights sponsor to slap its name on the side of the building.
This idea is not without flaws, of course. The odds are good that the 80,000-plus in the building that evening are going to freeze their heated seat cushions off.
As New York's own Marv Albert said Monday: "I think from the point of view of bringing it to New York, it's neat. Would I want to sit out there? That's a different story.''
Fair enough. But the 2014 Super Bowl will be a different story in the larger sense, too. And that alone makes the experiment worthwhile.
