The story of the week leading up to Super Bowl XLV is the fact that it's freakin' freezing in North Texas and, due to icy conditions, it is difficult to move around the area. Sure, the game is indoors, but the Super Bowl is about much more than the game.
At least this will gear up fans and media types for what they'll have to deal with next year in Indianapolis. If you didn't know, a beautiful winter storm nailed Indiana's capital yesterday.
Two years after that, the game will be in New York.
I know, I know. I'm not the first guy to complain about the fact that the NFL put the Super Bowl in New York. It certainly not the first time I've mentioned my displeasure for that on this blog. I also know that while it could snow in New York for Super Bowl XLVIII, odds are that it likely won't and the weather would be just under 40 degrees.
I'm also aware that nearly every NFL Championship game in the pre-Super Bowl era was decided in a cold weather city (the Los Angeles Rams hosted it a couple of times, too).
There is a huge difference. Time and "the times".
Those NFL Championship games were held in mid-December back in the early days to the first weekend of the New Year in 1965. It is and could be cold and snowy around the holidays. But it usually isn't anything like what happens in February. And if Roger Goodell gets his way, an 18-game season will push the Super Bowl to around President's Day (aka late February).
That puts the Super Bowl in the heart of the winter.
As for "the times", well the Super Bowl isn't the same thing as the NFL Championship game. Heck, it wasn't until 1958 until the country was all into the NFL's title game, anyway. You could have the game in a cold weather city because (a) most likely two cold weather cities were playing in it, (b) the game was held in one of team's home stadium in front of their home fans and (c) the game was the only reason for being there.
Now it's different. The Super Bowl isn't about the game as much as it is about all the things leading up to it. A zillion people have and will descend upon North Texas this week and most of them don't have tickets to the game. Rich fat-cats hold those tickets. There are parties, events, charities and people hocking and and everything under the sun. Media from all over the world come to this ... even though their citizens may not give a crap about football (well, American football).
Those people don't want to deal with bad weather mucking up their fun.
Not that the parties and such won't go on. Now, it's the "less necessary stuff" seems to get cut. A couple of events involving kids were cancelled (nice). Still, traveling around the area to get to these functions is very problematic.
It does alright when things are centrally located. In Detroit a few years ago, most of the Super Bowl events were held around Ford Field. This Super Bowl (just like the New York/New Jersey Super Bowl) has quite an expansive area to deal with.
Forget all that noise. Just make it easy and just kill these cold weather Super Bowl sites. Sure Indianapolis is a lovely city that has a domed stadium, but the weather outside is frightful.
The NFL just needs to go ahead and stick with a Super Bowl rotation. San Diego, Arizona, Houston, New Orleans, Tampa and Miami should be the only Super cities. Have a 10-year cycle where each of those cities gets the Super Bowl once, while Miami, New Orleans and Arizona gets it a second time. Wait, that's just 9 games. Hmm. I guess you can hold a cold weather Super Bowl in a city like North Texas or Atlanta. If Los Angeles can figure a way to wiggle their way in there, include them in the rotation.
It's the one thing the BCS gets done correctly. They rotate their title game between Pasadena, Arizona, New Orleans and Miami.
Start it with Super Bowl XLIX in 2015.
2015-Miami
2016-New Orleans
2017-Tampa
2018-Arizona
2019-Houston
2020-Miami
2021-New Orleans
2022-San Diego
2023-Arizona
2024-Dallas/Atlanta
I don't think anyone would complain about that.
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