Read the debate intro and the opposing argument from Loyal Homer.
Can someone PLEASE give me a VALID reason why the Super Bowl is only played in domes and warm weather climates? I know what people SAY the reasons are, but allow me to debunk those myths right now!
Myth #1 – Cold weather could create a disadvantage for “warm-weather” teams.
WHO CARES?! Nobody seems too concerned about an open-air team that has to play within the confines of a dome for the Super Bowl. Likewise, nobody is crying that Indianapolis and New Orleans, two dome teams, have to play this year’s Super Bowl in (gasp) an open-air stadium.
Do you really expect me to believe that trained professional athletes who play in Cleveland (okay, bad example for a Super Bowl discussion, but you get my point) are affected any less by snow and cold than people who play in Phoenix? The Clevelander may be more tolerant of the cold, but their body still reacts in exactly the same way.
Football is a sport played NATIONWIDE from the months of September through January. That means there is cold weather EVERYWHERE. If the San Diego Chargers, for example, are so one dimensional that they can only win a game if played when the temperatures are above 50 degrees, and there is no precipitation, then THEY DO NOT DESERVE TO BE IN THE SUPER BOWL!
Being a dome-team did not seem to bother Indianapolis in 2006 when they had to win a playoff game in Baltimore, and then when the team defeated the Chicago Bears during the monsoon Super Bowl that took place in Miami several weeks later.
The fact is that a championship football team will win games no matter where they are played.
Myth #2 – Bad weather equals bad games.
Super Bowl XLI proved two things. First, that even so-called warm weather cities like Miami can have horrible weather, and second, it proved that football is a game that was designed for play in any climate.
The game, which was played in a very chilly rain from start to finish, pitted the domed Indianapolis Colts against the cold weather Chicago Bears. If the myths were to hold true, then Indianapolis would have no chance of winning the game, and the final score should have been 9-3.
What ACTUALLY happened was a very entertaining game that ended with a 29-17 Colts victory. The Colts, who (according to the myth) should have been far too delicate to handle anything other than a dome’s climate-controlled perfection, amassed 430 total yards of offense, including 239 passing yards on 38 attempts.
Myth #3 – A blizzard could shut down a cold-weather Super Bowl.
I have news for you on this one: Blizzards affect THE CITY, not the stadium. So how is it that the NFL had no problem scheduling Super Bowls in Detroit and Minneapolis, but will not schedule one in Foxboro or New York? Detroit and Minneapolis get hit with blizzards all the time! Just because the stadium is under cover does not mean that the city would be operational. If a blizzard had hit Detroit on February 5th, 2006, there would NOT have been a Super Bowl XL. The fact that Ford Field is under cover would have done NOTHING to save the game, because that same cover does not protect the rest of the city.
Myth #4 – Bad weather is not fan-friendly.
Allow me to speak with authority on this particular myth.
Living in Cleveland, Ohio, I have been to football games when it was 80 degrees, and I have been to football games when it was five below zero. In all my years as a season-ticket holder, my best experience as a fan was at a game that took place on December 16th, 2007. In that game the Browns played the Buffalo Bills in a literal white-out. Winds were blowing up to 40 miles per hour, and there were times when the snow was so heavy that you could hardly make out the field. (It was so cold and snowy that my hoodie literally froze around my head. By the end of the game, the hood had frozen into a sort of hood-helmet!)
Still, the game was played in front of more than 73,000 screaming fans (check out this YouTube video for a little taste of the experience), all of whom were having the times of their lives!
Likewise, nearly 69,000 flooded the gates of Foxboro Stadium three weeks ago as the New England Patriots played host to the Baltimore Ravens for a Wildcard matchup, and another 63,000 filled the seats at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati for their Wildcard game.
If 79,000 raucous New Yorkers are willing to pack Giants Stadium on January 3rd for a regular-season week 17 matchup between the New York Jets and the Cincinnati Bengals, I think that the Super Bowl Committee could comfortably trust that they will not have any problems selling Super Bowl tickets at the same stadium one month later.
Although there are many stated reasons why the Super Bowl is never scheduled in a cold-weather city, the facts of history continue to prove over and again that those reasons are completely invalid. It is time to reconsider the current Super Bowl model and let the fans from Chicago, Green Bay, Denver, Cleveland, and New York (for example) have their chance to stage football’s greatest game. To paraphrase a famous saying: Neither rain, nor sleet, nor heat, nor gloom of night will keep football fans from travelling en masse to the single biggest sporting event of the year!
