http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/13774/the-new-york-super-bowl-debate 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. Related Coverage • Clayton: Examining SB bids | Audio • SportsNation: N.Y. Super Bowl? • Freeze Frames: Cold-weather games 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. Super Bowl Weather? According to weather.com, the average high in East Rutherford, N.J., the first week of February is 38 degrees. The average low is 23. 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. Coldest games at Meadowlands since 2000 There were four games played at Giants Stadium in the past 10 seasons (since 2000), regular season or postseason, in which the game-time temperature was less than 30 degrees. Date Score Temp. 12/23/00 NYG 28, JAC 25 23 12/7/03 WAS 20, NYG 7 27 12/20/09 ATL 10, NYJ 7 29 1/3/10 NYJ 37, CIN 0 20 Source: Elias Sports Bureau 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. The 2014 Super Bowl likely will be played Feb. 2. The Newark Star-Ledger listed the high and low temperatures for the past five years, and it has gotten above 45 three times and has gotten more than 1 degree below freezing once. So we're not talking arctic conditions here. A level playing field is relative. Back in Rozelle's day, we didn't have a fraction of the technology that's used to maintain these amazing synthetic fields. We're not going to have a reprise of the 1975 Raiders-Steelers AFC Championship Game, where the field was a sheet of ice. And warmer locales aren't immune to weather problems. There was a downpour in South Florida three years ago. As for the idea there won't be as much to do as in South Florida, Arizona or another warm destination, are you telling me there's no activity in New York? In addition to the usual array of diversions in the Big Apple, organizers plan to hold events at places such as Ellis Island, Liberty State Park and the Museum of Natural History. Here's what Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank said about the possibility of a Super Bowl in the Big Apple: "You have to ask yourself, are people going to come for three or four or five days and deal with the elements? Are people prepared to come to New York and deal with cold weather? Without a Super Bowl, they do it now." JC: Let's put things in perspective here. You made the decision to leave the warmth of South Florida in the past year to be embraced by the chill of Buffalo. You wanted to wear the heavy coat, gloves and snow boots. As you know, I'm a Pittsburgh guy who lives in Seattle, but I don't miss the snow. But let's move from the Weather Channel debate to the football field. You would have to concede the on-field product for this game will be different in an outdoor venue in the East in February. More and more, the NFL is becoming a quarterback-driven league that excites its fans with passing offenses more than running offenses. You cover an AFC East that has two pure running teams -- the Jets and Dolphins -- who combined for 16 wins last season. I know the Jets made the AFC Championship Game, but the league is set up to reward passers, not runners. Peyton Manning beat the run-driven Dolphins even though he had the ball for only 15 minutes last season. A Super Bowl in the cold would neutralize the passers, which would go against the trends in this league. About the only thing you can say definitively about having a cold-weather Super Bowl in New York is that Brett Favre won't have any part of it. He may decide to retire and unretire for a few more years, but he would never sign on for a season that ends in a New York open-air Super Bowl. Three Coldest NFL Games On Record Temp. Teams Date Minus-13 (Minus-48 wind chill) DAL at GB Dec. 31, 1967 Minus-9 (Minus-59 wind chill) SD at CIN Jan. 10, 1982 0 (Minus-32 degree wind chill) OAK at BUF Jan. 15, 1994 TG: I won't dispute the NFL is a quarterback-driven league and cold weather has a tendency to neutralize a pass attack. But if sterile conditions are so important to deciding a champion, then why aren't the games that determine who reaches the Super Bowl controlled? If the 2007 NFC Championship Game isn't played in a minus-23 wind chill, maybe the Giants don't win in overtime and then ruin the New England Patriots' perfect season. The road to the Super Bowl has gone through Gillette Stadium and Heinz Field a few times over the past decade. Unless every playoff game is moved to a dome, weather can impact the tournament and, therefore, who wins it. And let's not forget wintry elements have created some of the greatest memories in NFL history. The Ice Bowl in Green Bay, the Tuck Rule at Gillette, the Freezer Bowl in Cincinnati, the 1948 title game in a Philadelphia blizzard, the Sneaker Game at a frozen Polo Grounds. In baseball, the players skedaddle when it rains. But football players are supposed to slog through any conditions shy of lightning strikes. The game is supposed to be played outside and in the elements. The Super Bowl can handle it. JC: Now you are using the Brian Cushing defense by questioning every thing and every rule. Sure, the Super Bowl can handle a cold-weather game, but why should it? Obviously, it's the money, and that's why this vote is going to pass in favor of New York.
When it comes to Super Bowls, the games should be the memories, not the weather conditions. The best memories are the fourth-quarter comebacks. It's Joe Montana getting that last drive against Cincinnati. It's Tom Brady coming back and getting the game-winning, field goal drive against St. Louis. It's Eli Manning beating Brady with a late drive. It's not Tim Graham jumping on a snow-blowing machine and doing spins. I give you your New York Super Bowl next Tuesday. Bundle up, big guy. TG: I can guarantee the public overwhelmingly would prefer to watch me drive figure eights on a Zamboni than see you strolling South Beach in your shorts. Sorry to bring up that mental picture when you conjured some dramatic Super Bowl imagery. Those sure were some fine moments, but you also have 44 years' worth of climate-controlled Super Bowls to draw on. Who's to say similarly phenomenal memories wouldn't have taken place in the open air of a Northeast winter?
i hope we dont get it. not because of the weather not because of the added congestion. just because i want woody johnson to get shit on. i even stopped buying johnson & johnson baby powder. $5 for a bottle same bottle made by target is $2. woody has been ripping me off for years
If a cold-weather team plays a warm-weather team in the Super Bowl why should the latter always have the advantage of favourable conditions?
It's all relative. A cold-weather team will have fewer advantages in a dome, for example, than a dome/warm-weather team.
Football is meant to be played outdoor in cold weather. It is about time they stopped pussifying the SB. Lets Go 2014 Meadowlands!
I vote no. This opens the door for Super Bowls in NE, Buffalo, CLE, PIT, etc. and I don't think the weather conditions should affect who wins a Super Bowl championship. Plus, a ticket is so damn expensive, to charge a fan 2K and make them sit in this upper deck on a February night (remember - it's a night game) is a crime. Place will be empty at halftime. More importantly I hate the fact that Jets and Giants ownership are being rewarded for building this stadium - this stadium is an insult to any past season ticket holder of either team. I was never a big fan of building a dome here, but a retractable roof would not have been a terrible idea since this stadium barely has any covered seats other than the ridiculously priced suites. This is a topic for the new stadium thread, but getting a Super Bowl justifies all of Mara/Tisch and Woody's plans for this stadium, and reduces the attention of how flawed it is. All that money was spent on suites. The argument for a retractable roof was "they could get a Super Bowl" well, Commissioner Goodell didn't care about that apparently in this case. The suites with paneled walls and fireplaces in the new stadium (yes, fireplaces) are called "Commissioners' Suites" how convenient. I think that says it all right there. Surprised it's not "Goodell Suites"
Yes for sure- Back in the day this is what football was all about, just ask Madden. I'd love to watch a SB during a blizzard, both teams are playing in it. Right now dome teams have the advantage, they are used to playing in no elements whatsoever and can concentrate mostly on that fact.
dome football is not football. it's arena football at best. real football is played in the mud and the blood and the beer.
I vote no to any SB in the northern half of the country. My vote has nothing to do with team advantages or anything like that. My vote is for the fans who pay through the ass to "experience" the SB. One day i might actually be able to afford to go to a SB, and when I do, I want it to be a great experience. Party in South Beach or hanging at the Channelside in Tampa. Not stuck in a dingy hotel bar, sloshing through the slush of New Jersey to sit in the ice cold for 4 hours to watch the game.
Hey I like going to New York... even the $10 drinks... Again... sloshing through the slush. It wouldn't be the same.
When did football fans become such giant pussies? Maybe this will keep the corporate stiffs at home so the real fans can be in attendance. I can guarantee you I will not have one complaint sitting in the freezing cold watching the Jets in the SB. On a side note, I have never in my life heard more complaining about a brand spanking new state of the art stadium for your favorite team as I have for this Jets stadium.
Can you say PSL? As far as being pussies becaus eof the weather... we'd all go to watch our team play in the SB no matter where it is played. That doesn't mean it's a great idea to have it in the northeast in February.
Every new stadium has had some sort of PSL and most of them are more expensive then the Jets, including the Giants. Some of the greatest games ever played in NFL history have been played in cold weather, there is no reason not to have a SB in cold weather other then some of the corporate stiffs won't be happy about it. That alone is reason enough to play it in cold weather.
NFL has lent Jets/Giants several Hundred Million to build stadium, Getting that loan paid back is dependent upon PSL sales, NFL offices are in NYC, Most Corporate Sponsors are in NY area anyhow, TV studios are up here, more celebs are up here. 99.9999% of people are watchin on TV and are not at game. The people in expensive seats will be in Commisioners Club, Press Box, Suites, Coaches Club, EW Clubs, LL EZ covered and Mezz B covered. Supposedly in covered ares they can also do space heaters on roof. Stadium can also bring in space heaters for LL and Mezz concession areas. I even read they have a way to install heated seats in all 2,000 club seats. Players have heated benches and a nice warm locker room. But the entire UD will be shit out of luck, no cover and concession area is open to elements so space heaters won't even work. So that 27,000 people may freeze to death. That is the big downside. I doubt Woody cares, upside if freezing I will go on stubhub and buy a cheap UD ticket and wear three coats and two hats
