Apparently folks are all worried and cringing their hands over the couple of inches of precipitation that have fallen in the Greater Jerry Jones Area of Arlington, Texas leading into the Super Bowl. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports rightly condemns those pussies who worry about a Super Bowl played inside a dome with just a touch of weather. But in doing so, he makes me wonder just how well versed he is in how Super Bowls work.
Consider these quotes:
"If you’re going to stage Super Bowls in locales that are immune to inclement weather then your list of host cities is Miami, Tampa and San Diego, with Phoenix, where it gets cold, but not icy, as a borderline option. That’s it."
It is 71 degrees in Phoenix, so that was a weird thing to say. Sure, their overnight temp might drop just a bit below 50 degrees, but that sounds nice to me. But it appears that Dan Wetzel speaks more truth than he knows. Miami has hosted 10 Super Bowls. Tampa has hosted four. San Diego 3, Phoenix 2. New Orleans (which really should have been on the list, freak ice storm or no) has hosted nine. Wetzel, I assume, is only using current NFL cities, or he surely would have included Los Angeles, who have hosted seven Super Bowls. The Super Bowl is almost exclusively held in southern cities--just because Wetzel doesn't include Atlanta (a dome in a southern city that has hosted two Super Bowls) or Houston doesn't mean you couldn't include them.
But let's take just Wetzel's cities--Miami, Tampa, San Diego and Phoenix--that's 19 Super Bowls right there. Adding Nawlins and LA gives you another 16 Super Bowls. That's 35 Super Bowls! Before you add Atlanta and Houston!
"The value of bringing the big game around the country to regular people and taxpayers, who have been asked (forced) to pay for NFL stadiums, should continue to overwhelm those desires though."
Emphasis mine! Continue to? It NEVER HAS! Maybe Dan Wetzel should read up on what Roger Goodell said to the fine people of Atlanta, who have a stadium under 20 years of age in the American South, where it is supposed to be 55 degrees.
You want to angry me up? Suggest that the Super Bowl was ever designed for the fans who follow the teams involved, and hasn't always been about rich tourists. It has always been, and always will be. Suggesting other wise is just kind of silly.
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