Did the negotiating tool for moving the Washington Redskins back to the District just come via a Super Bowl vote for New York?
NFL owners awarded Super Bowl XLVIII to a cold-weather, no-dome stadium for the first time — this despite a fair chance of bad weather ruining the nation’s biggest sporting event. The new $1.6 billion stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., shared by the New York Giants and Jets, will host the 2014 championship after four votes eliminated Miami and Tampa on Tuesday.
Redskins owner Dan Snyder already is lobbying for the game, and rightfully so. This is the nation’s capital, after all. Side memo to Major League Baseball: You owe us the All-Star Game — pay up.
The NFL should rotate its premier event to northern cities at least once every four years. Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, San Diego and Arizona are superb sites, but the league has 32 teams and everyone’s fans should get the game at least once in their lifetime.
If NFL backwater Jacksonville hosted the game, why can’t Green Bay? OK, that’s pressing it too far. Having covered an NFC Championship in minus-22 degree wind chill, I don’t wish Green Bay in February on anyone.
Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Denver, Seattle and New England are fine venues, though. It’s time to expand beyond the warm weather monopolies.
New York’s average February high temperature is 40 degrees, 10 less than the NFL minimum for its championship game. The owners agreed to a one-time waiver, but who’s to say this doesn’t set precedent for other cold-weather open stadiums to seek the game?
When a blizzard hit the 1982 Super Bowl in Pontiac, Mich., the NFL didn’t risk another northern site for 10 years before Washington beat Buffalo in Minneapolis. It snowed six inches in Minneapolis two days earlier and the poor road clearing resembled Washington’s ineptness.
Could the game really come to Washington, which was once linked with New York for a potential bid after the 9/11 attacks? Washingtonians should root for good weather in New York or else the Super Bowl may never come to FedEx Field.
Even so, Washington needs a new stadium to get the game. Once thought unlikely before 2027 — when the current FedEx Field lease ends — a Super Bowl incentive could clear an earlier deal given its $150 million impact. There would be money for everybody; plus politicians wanting the game near Capitol Hill could endorse land use agreements plaguing the RFK site.
Past talks between Snyder and District leaders have floundered over recent years. There’s not much sense resuming until after November elections, but Snyder now has a real hammer — the Super Bowl.
What city leader doesn’t want both the team’s return and a Super Bowl? They’d be re-elected for life.
Let the backroom games begin.
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Read more at TheRickSniderReport.com and Twitter @Snide_Remarks or e-mail [email protected].
