Read the opposing arguments from Bleacher Fan and Loyal Homer about whether or not the Super Bowl should continue to be hosted only in warm weather or domed stadiums.
The Super Bowl has become a fair weather game. All the Super Bowls of the modern millennia have been played in warm locations. Specifically, Florida, Arizona, California, Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia. The only exception came in 2006, when the Super Bowl was held at Ford Field in Detroit, an indoor stadium that does not exactly qualify as a cold weather venue. There are a lot of positive aspects to hosting the game in a warm, and sometimes tropical, location. Warm weather games are clearly more fan friendly. No body wants to shell out huge amounts of money for Super Bowl tickets only to say, “The weather was lousy. I was miserable the whole time.” Good weather is a plus for the media, who have millions of dollars invested in covering the most watched sporting event of the year, and do not wish to worry about snow and sleet impacting the halftime performance. Aren’t Mick Jagger and the other fossils they dig up for the halftime performances brittle enough without having to worry about the cold?
But cold weather venues also offer certain unique experiences which capture the ruggedness and unpredictability that make the NFL so exciting in the first place. The 1967 National Football League Championship between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packer – more popularly known as “The Ice Bowl” – is one of the most memorable games in professional football history. There is something special about two teams meeting in an epic clash, staged upon a chilly backdrop of negative 40 degree wind-chill temperatures. Whenever I see footage of a white field in Foxborough or Green Bay I always stop and think, “Man, I wish I could see a game like that!”
So, which venue is best for the game? That is the issue that today’s debate will attempt to resolve. Should the Super Bowl be played in a cold weather climate?
Bleacher Fan will argue that true fans of the game want to see the Super Bowl played in its harshest and most challenging environment – outside, during the Winter in the North. Loyal Homer will argue that the sensible and responsible thing to do is keep the game in the warmth and comfort of a Southern climate.
Should the NFL tip their caps to the purists and diehard fans that would surely be thrilled to see a blizzard bowl? Or is the smart money on keeping the game out of the frigid wastelands and maintaining a vacation atmosphere the better plan?
