BEST TEAM should host Super Bowl
NFL owners voted to play the 2014 Super Bowl – XLVIII for your Roman Numeral freaks out there – in the new 1.6 billion dollar Meadowlands Stadium. It’s in New Jersey. In February. Outside. With no roof.
"NFL owners voted Tuesday to put the 48th Super Bowl in the new $1.6 billion Meadowlands Stadium that this season will become home to the New York Jets and New York Giants. It’s the first time the league has gone to a cold-weather site that doesn’t have a dome, and those places couldn’t even bid on the big game until now."
OK, I get it. NY/NJ just built this fantastic new stadium and want to show it off. There’s a longstanding and not so subtle east coast bias and this vote shows it.
Here’s where I think they missed the mark: Why not just have the team with the best record host the Super Bowl?
With this vote, NFL owner have set a precedent that the game can be played in potentially extreme conditions, so why not let the best team have a shot at having the game in their back yard?
The NFL just set the 2010 schedule with divisional matchups in Weeks 16 and 17 in an effort to inspire more competition and discourage teams from sitting their stars with home field advantage locked up. What if there was another tier to that home field advantage?
Last season the Colts and Saints ended up being separated by 1 game and the Colts sat starters with weeks left in the season. If home field for the Super Bowl was at stake, do you think they would have done that?
None of the other major sport holds their championship games at a neutral site. Best team gets home field/court/ice advantage. It’s that simple.
Unless of course you consider MLB’s ridiculous notion of having home field decided by the outcome of the freaking All Star Game. You know, the game where every team has to be represented and the managers have to try to get everyone into the game? Dumbest. Rule. Ever. But I digress…
Detractors will say that there’s no way to organize the game and parties/activities/accommodations surrounding the Super Bowl hoopla when the site wouldn’t be know until just 2 weeks before the big game. You know what? Who freaking care about that stuff? All of that has become a big distracting 2-week pregame circle jerk leading up to what really matters – the game itself.
Not to mention that if you can host a Super Bowl in Jacksonville (the armpit of the south) and Detroit (the armpit of the world), why couldn’t a Chicago or Kansas City or any other city (besides Green Bay because we hate the Packers around here) host the big game?
NFL owners have opened the door with this vote. It’s time to walk through it and let the BEST TEAM host the Super Bowl.