Debating New York's 2014 Super Bowl bid

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Next Tuesday in Dallas, NFL owners will assemble for their annual spring meeting and consider having the 2014 Super Bowl in the open air and freezing cold of New York/New Jersey.

Although Tampa and South Florida are competing against New York, offering warmer climates and positive experiences from past Super Bowls, the New York bid is the favorite. A Super Bowl in the new Meadowlands stadium that opens for the New York Giants and New York Jets this fall could help market unsold premium seats. Former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle preferred warm-weather, neutral sites for the league's showcase event, but usually once a decade the league would steer a Super Bowl to a northern, cold-weather city with a domed stadium.

The thought of an open-air Super Bowl in February near Manhattan will be a hot topic next week. But should this bid receive such a warm reception? ESPN.com's John Clayton and Tim Graham debate the notion.

John Clayton: While we can get into the football problems of this bid in a bit, let's be blunt about two things. First, it's a bad idea.

Second, it's going to happen because a Super Bowl in New York would help with the economics of this new stadium. It's big business. When the choice is between cold, hard cash and being out in the cold, the cold-hard-cash side wins.

Where this idea leaves me chilled is how it affects the fans. I remember being at the NFC Championship Game at Lambeau Field a couple years ago, when the temperatures were below zero and the wind chill at times got to 30-below. I did a stand-up for television and almost got frostbite. The conditions were so cold that fans who bought two beers at a time and brought them to their seats had one beer frozen before they could take the first two sips of the beer in hand. I still remember how red Tom Coughlin's face was from being out in the freezing cold for three hours. And that was in January.

A conference championship game in the cold is acceptable because the home fans are used to the conditions. Imagine some San Diego fan flying east to see a Chargers Super Bowl in 2014, paying more than $1,000 a ticket and needing to spend more on warm clothing? That brings chills down my spine.

Tim Graham: Without a doubt, John, this is about rewarding teams that are able to get stunning new arenas built. Some $1.6 billion was spent to erect the new Meadowlands stadium, and the NFL knows the only way to encourage all of its franchises to pursue new stadiums or significant upgrades is to ramp up competition for Super Bowl bids.

You may view that as a carrot that should be jammed in the middle of Frosty's white, powdery face, but the game isn't about the 82,500 people who will be sitting in the elements. More than 106 million people watched the last Super Bowl and would have whether it was played in a dome, in the desert or on the International Space Station.

Even so, one of the competing bidders for the 2014 Super Bowl is South Florida. Miami Dolphins CEO Mike Dee admitted to me at the NFL owners meetings a couple of months back that the new Meadowlands stadium "is a state-of-the-art, beautiful, world-class facility. While it's an outdoor facility, it has a lot of interior club spaces and entertainment spaces for people to mill around. So it's not your conventional outdoor, northern facility." There are plans to heat the concourses and -- just in case -- to provide seat and hand warmers to everyone.

But I'm not too concerned with the fans who would attend the game.

Scant few of those lucky enough to afford the tickets or merely have access to them will care. Most go to the Super Bowl to witness an event. A Super Bowl in the New York area would qualify as a blockbuster.

JC: I'd rather refer to it as an "ice-blockbuster.'' But is a Super Bowl a three-hour event or a two-week celebration? One of the things Rozelle mandated in coming up with the Super Bowl was a level playing field for both teams. By level playing field, he meant having a warm-weather site that gave both teams a chance to succeed. For the fans, he wanted a quality event.

I'm sure he never fully envisioned how successful it would be as a corporate entity. The reason the Super Bowl isn't played a week after the championship game is because the league wants to give fans a full chance to get to the Super Bowl city, enjoy the festivities and have a memorable experience. If the Super Bowl is given to New York, I contend a lot of the high rollers will be in Tampa or South Florida, holding golf events during Super Bowl week and watching the game on television. We saw that at the Minnesota Super Bowl and the two in Detroit.

What if there is a big snowfall in the 2014 Super Bowl? To have this game qualify as a blockbuster, you might have to hire the "Ice Road Trucker" guys to get fans to the stadium.


Debating New York's 2014 Super Bowl bid - AFC East Blog - ESPN

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NY/NJ has it down cold as XLVIII host

IRVING, Texas -- If you build it, they will come -- wearing winter coats.

The New Meadowlands Stadium, the $1.6 billion jewel co-owned by the New York Giants and Jets, will host the 2014 Super Bowl, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced Tuesday afternoon at the league's spring meeting.

"It's a historic moment for the league," Goodell said.

Saying that New York is a unique market, Goodell added: "It will be a great experience for our fans. It will be a great experience for the NFL."

The league's 32 owners, undaunted by the prospect of a wintry championship game, awarded Super Bowl XLVIII to the New York/New Jersey region after also considering bids from Tampa and South Florida, both traditional sites. South Florida and Tampa have hosted the Super Bowl 10 and four times, respectively.

It took four rounds of secret balloting to determine the host. New York/New Jersey won by a simple majority over Tampa. South Florida was eliminated after the second ballot.

The official tag line of the New York/New Jersey bid was "Make Some History," and it did. It will be the first open-air stadium in a cold-weather region to host a Super Bowl. In their presentation to the membership, the Jets and Giants reps showed a video that included clips from historic cold-weather games, including Adam Vinatieri's forever field goal for the Patriots in the 2001 divisional playoffs in Foxborough, Mass. -- aka "The Snow Bowl" and "The Tuck Rule Game."

"An old-school matchup in a new-school stadium," the voice-over says.

There could be a record-low temperature at kickoff. The current record is 39 degrees in 1972 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, and that would be considered a warm February day in East Rutherford, N.J.

There's never been snow in a Super Bowl game and that could happen, too.

"Obviously it will be cold, but that's what playing football is all about," Giants quarterback Eli Manning told Fox News Channel's "Studio B with Shepard Smith." "I've been in the Super Bowl and I've been to a couple of Super Bowls and if you're not in it, the Super Bowl is an event and it's kinda a place to be and there's no better place to be than New York City for that vibe and that atmosphere."

The average temperature range for the Meadowlands area during February is 24 to 40 degrees, with several inches of rain, according to the bid documents. Remember, the game kicks off after sunset in the Eastern time zone, so temperatures would be dropping throughout the night.

Planners have factored it all in. They're plotting giveaways to warm hands and seats, having hundreds of folks ready to shovel away snow and anything else they can do to make the experience more than just bearable.

Jets owner Woody Johnson cracked, "I like doing things for the first time ... I hope it snows."

It could be the last cold play for a long time, as the league made this a onetime exemption to its 50-degree rule.

"People talk about the weather, but, you know, this is football, not beach volleyball," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the NFL Network. He said his city welcomed the chance to host its share of a worldwide event and noted the Sept. 11 attacks.

"America came to the rescue of New York, and that's something I think that New Yorkers have never forgotten," Bloomberg said. "This is a little bit of our chance to say thank you."

Meadowlands CEO Mark Lamping told the owners, via the NFL Network, "This region has hosted every big event -- except the Super Bowl." Lamping described their plans to integrate the Super Bowl into the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and Fashion Week.

Organizers expect the 2014 Super Bowl to generate approximately $550 million for the local economy. While there will be no direct financial benefit to the two local teams, the Super Bowl will help the Giants and Jets sell the naming rights to the stadium. That could be worth an estimated $500 million.

The two teams will have access to 109 of the 219 club suites in the 82,500-seat stadium, and those will be distributed to their suite holders. But the money goes directly to the league. The Giants and Jets will split 6.2 percent of the overall ticket allotment. Because two teams are hosting, more hometown fans than usual will be left in the cold. Typically, the host city gets 5 percent.

Johnson wasted no time in raising the possibility of a Jets-Giants showdown in four years.

"We'll try to be in that Super Bowl together," he said, then turned to Giants co-owner Jonathan Tisch. "Am I right?"

Giants co-owner John Mara thanked his fellow owners "for having the guts to want to make some history."

He credited Johnson for hatching the idea in 2005, when the two teams agreed to share the new stadium.

"Woody started pushing the idea about four years ago, and he was absolutely relentless," Mara said.

Johnson said: "I was born in New Brunswick, N.J. To be a Jersey boy and to bring something like this -- to be involved in something this big -- is a tremendous thing for all the people that live in our area."

There are three possible dates for the game in 2014 -- Feb. 2, 9, 16. It depends on the structure of the 2013 season.

Before it gets to the Meadowlands, the Super Bowl will be held in Dallas (2011), Indianapolis (2012) and New Orleans (2013).

The Tampa organizers, in their presentation, used Tampa-area resident Dick Vitale of ESPN to extol the virtues of his adopted hometown.

"Vote for Tampa, bay-bee!" he implored in the video.

Vitale was born and raised in New Jersey, mere minutes from the new Meadowlands Stadium.

Tampa officials said they were informed they finished a very close second to New York, but said they were not given an official tally of the vote.

"Under normal circumstances, we probably would have walked away with the trophy," said Sandy MacKinnon of the Tampa Bay Super Bowl bid committee. "But the NFL was interested in making history with New York City and a new stadium. I think the odds were stacked against the traditional sunshine climate."

Although Goodell has been viewed by some as steering the Super Bowl to New York, Tampa Bay Buccaneers co-chairman Bryan Glazer said he's not pointing fingers.

"We gave New York a good fight," Glazer said. "I congratulate New York on their efforts and wish them a great Super Bowl.

"This has gotten us well-positioned for getting another Super Bowl in Tampa. The Tampa Bay area is a great area for the Super Bowl and the owners know it."

Glazer said Tampa Bay officials likely will bid for the 2015 or 2016 Super Bowl, but no final decision has been made.

Mara tried to imagine how his late father, Wellington Mara, might have reacted to New York getting the Super Bowl.

"I think he would've thought we've come a long way since the Polo Grounds in 1925," Mara said in an NFL Network interview immediately after the announcement.


2014 Super Bowl: NY/NJ wins bid to host game - ESPN New York