When word came out that Indianapolis was awarded the 2012 Super Bowl, you could hear the collective groan all over the internets/newspapers/sports shows. They all say that Indianapolis is a lovely city ... but it's gonna be cold. Cold sucks, apparently.
One of the biggest critics has been ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski:
Indianapolis? You mean, the Indianapolis in Indiana? The place where the low was 26 degrees with a trace of snow on Super Bowl Sunday this year?
I don't get it. Playing in a Super Bowl is supposed to be a reward, not a reason to visit your local North Face outlet. And attending a Super Bowl as a fan is supposed to be the experience of a lifetime, a chance to break out multiple bottles of SPF 30.
The only things you'll break out in Indy are space heaters.
Boo-hoo. The Super Bowl won't be held in Miami, New Orleans, Phoenix, Houston or Southern California. Places that the surrounding madness of the game loves to go. Media guys and fans long for
Oh, and spare me the "experience of a lifetime" for fans blast. Real fans can't go to the Super Bowl. It's about you, the media guy and the business partners that populate Super Bowl cities like locusts.
Remember the snow storm that nailed Atlanta in 2000 as the Rams and Titans were readying for Super Bowl XXXIV? I'm sure that wasn't fun for the locals or visitors. Most of the SB parties were shut down and preperations were wasted (add in the fact that a tornado ripped through during the SEC Basketball Championship this spring and I'd guess the A-T-L shouldn't host any event, eh?).
Or how about the rain storm in Miami a couple years ago ... making one of the worst weather situations in Super Bowl history? We all wanted to see that vaunted Colts offense slosh it around in the mud, didn't we. If the announcement said that the game would be held in Miami or Atlanta, you wouldn't have blinked an eye.
Not all warm weather Super Bowls turn out that way. Game time temperatures have been all over the map:
- Super Bowl VI, New Orleans: 39º
- Super Bowl IX, New Orleans: 46º
- Super Bowl XIX, Palo Alto: 53º
- Super Bowl XXXVIII, Houston: 59º
- Super Bowl XXXIX, Jacksonville: 59º
Granted, those New Orleans' Super Bowls were held earlier in January and the other temps aren't that bad ... but this is football. Oh, and many of those "fans" at the game can deal with it. The small amount of the team's fans that can actually get tickets could give a damn where the game is played (as long as there is a roof). The others that decend on the Super Bowl are there for the celebration around the game. Maybe those people will be disappointed, but who cares? They'll get to go to Miami or Arizona the next year.
The Winter Olympics are cold. World Series games in Boston and Colorado are cold. NBA All Star games in Denver, Washington and New York are cold. Bowl games in Boise and Detroit are cold. I hate the cold, too, but that doesn't mean we should lop off every state that doesn't touch Mexico (of the Gulf of Mexico) from hosting America's premiere event.
The key is the ability to embrace the cold as a theme. Indy plans to do that with a "Super Bowl Village" complete with fire pit zones. The city isn't a stranger to hosting big sporting events (Indy 500, numerous Final Fours) so they should put on quite a show.
So quit bitching about having to have your expenses paid to hang out in a Super Bowl city. Waaaaa! If you don't want to go, feel free to hand me your credentials and I'll take the cold weather stuff for you.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-28-2008 @ 6:04PM
Marc said...
It's not that Indianapolis is cold, it's that it's a bush-league burg one step above Topeka. No one would be complaining if the Super Bowl was in Chicago or NY.
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