The Super Bowl is all about tradition. For 36 years, players have battled it out for a trip to the big one — the game that draws the largest crowds, gets beamed out around the world and that makes or breaks an NFL season for two teams. But NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said yesterday he would consider a break from tradition.
Tagliabue said he may permit the Super Bowl to move to a city with colder weather, specifically New York or Washington, D.C., the two cities targeted on Sept. 11. Tagliabue’s decision indicates a lack of serious thought on the part of the league and shows the league is allowing itself to be privy to the sensationalism of thinking New York and Washington are above other U.S. cities because of the attacks.
At a press conference yesterday, Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) announced they would try as hard as possible to bring the game to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, for the 2007 Super Bowl. As anyone who’s visited the Meadowlands can attest, East Rutherford was not built for a Super Bowl. The city lacks the venue and the space to accommodate a spectacle such as the Super Bowl. In addition, the stadium would need be to be renovated to live up to NFL standards, which would take some serious funding and effort.
Schumer and Torricelli also dodged criticism about the weather, saying some of their favorite moments in football history have been played in the snow. However, their favorite moments aren’t relevant to the Super Bowl, which has always been about bringing teams to a neutral zone, where skill, not weather, dictates the outcome. Besides the players, watching a game in the cold weather of the Northeast isn’t healthy for the 80,000 spectators watching the game.
Moreover, suggesting to bring the Super Bowl to only those two cities is a shameless exploitation of the suffering in those regions. Schumer and Torricelli are taking advantage of increased sympathy toward the New York and Washington areas, trying to bring a surefire moneymaker to their polity. Victims of the Sept. 11 attacks need real help, not a football game.
It just isn’t equitable to bring the game to two, and only two, northern cities. The game needs to stay put.
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