The NFL Network will air “Three Sites, One Dream” on Tuesday at 3 p.m. Studio host Rich Eisen — along with Michael Irvin and Daryl “Moose” Johnston — will report live from the NFL annual meeting at the Omni Mandalay Hotel in Dallas to give viewers an inside look at the process of determining the Super Bowl host site. The announcement of which contender city will host the 2014 Super Bowl — New York/New Jersey, Miami and Tampa Bay — will come at the end of the show.
The new Meadowlands Stadium is the frontrunner for the 2014 Super Bowl, but this is less about the sizzle of a game in the Big Apple and more about the league wanting to help the Giants and Jets sell seats in their new $1.6-billion, 82,500-seat facility.
Less than four months before kickoff, both the Giants and Jets are still trying to sell season tickets — a marked change from the old Giants Stadium, where both franchises had generations-long waiting lists.
The problem is a three-letter acronym that has turned into a four-letter word for fans and teams alike: PSL, or a personal seat license. A PSL is a one-time purchase that gives a fan a right to buy his/her season tickets. But the bad economy turned the PSL — and, as a result, season tickets — into a luxury many could not afford. Costs of the PSLs for Jets season tickets range from $4,000 to more than $30,000, while Giants PSLs run anywhere from $1,000 to $20,000.
The Giants are about 2,500 PSLs away from getting their season sold out. The Jets, however, are another story. Despite discounts and some minor PSL and ticket reductions, they are still far short of selling out the season. That means possible blackouts for the Jets in the league’s top market.
The NFL already has helped owners in Detroit (twice), Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Houston and Dallas by awarding Super Bowls to cities willing to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s dollars to build domed showplaces. But if we take the Super Bowl outdoors you can bet the Redskins’ Daniel Snyder, the Broncos’ Pat Bowlen, the Patriots’ Bob Kraft, the Bears’ McCaskey family, the Ravens’ Steve Bisciotti and Pittsburgh’s Dan Rooney will all want to see a rotation that is similar to baseball’s All-Star Game.
My guess is that the new deal likely will keep the Super Bowl in warm climates with a new cold-weather city being given the game every third year. So, if New York gets the game, it becomes open season on where future Super Bowls will be played.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this!
