LITTLE ROCK — May 25, 2010. Late afternoon. Irving, Texas.
Let us record that this was when the NFL went certifiably insane.
This was when America’s favorite sport made a decision suggesting the league was suffering the effects of some sort of corporate concussion.
I mean, really? You’re going to play a Super Bowl in the bitter cold with a probability of snow by choice?
Welcome to East Rutherford, N.J., site of the 2014 Super Brrrr.
I can’t come up with a decent reason to want to be in East Rutherford under any circumstances - particularly with its unfortunate proximity to New York Jets fans - but the least of those circumstances would be in early February, when temperatures drop into the 20s and the wind bites and sleety, gray banks of sludge (far too ugly to be called snow) are likely to entomb the stadium.
The NFL, in Tuesday awarding Super Bowl XLVIII to the New Meadowlands Stadium, has for the first time bestowed its signature game to an open-air stadium in a harsh-winter city.
Competing bids from Miami andTampa, Fla., were denied. Yeah, why play the biggest of all games in fair weather? Makes too much sense.
The league should be arrested for prostitution because, in effect, the NFL has broken its own rules on mild-climate Super Bowls to reward the Jets and Giants for building a $1.6 billion stadium.
To the highest builder go the spoils.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell calls this a one-time-only exception to that philosophy, but it’s tough putting the smoke back in the cigar.
The precedent is set. Washington already is clamoring to host. Philadelphia is raising its hand.
What has happened is, the seal is broken. The sane old days when Super Bowls were played in fairweather cities such as Miami and New Orleans - those are quaint old days now. The map has opened wide.
Tuesday means mild weather no longer is the overriding, prerequisite here.
That’s too bad.
The winning Jersey bid, and the NFL in buying it, romanticizes the idea of macho football played in winter, plumes of cold breath billowing through face masks.
Sure enough, who among usdoesn’t count Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., and its “frozen tundra” among our early, fond snapshots?
Here’s the thing, though. When watching those Packers home games in deep winter, here was my prevailing thought while staring at my TV: Good Lord, I’m glad I’m not there.
The NFL, with this open-air Jersey Super Bowl, has hijacked our de facto national holiday and sold it to the most bitter of surroundings.
The likely weather scenario will portend a miserable Super Bowl week for those brave visitors who don’t say to heck with it and stay home, and a miserable week for participating teams that would rather have the reward of awakening in Miami in sandals and short sleeves, not awakening in East Rutherford dressed as if elk hunting in Alaska.
Good luck booking a halftime act in 2014, by the way.
The good news? No threat of wardrobe malfunction, because under that layer of clothing will be more layers of clothing.
They played a Super Bowl in Pontiac, Mich., after the 1981 season. They played the game in Minneapolis after the 1991 season. (I remember pinwheeling my arms to keep from pratfalling on icystreets.) They put the game back in Detroit, defying logic, after the 2005 season.
Significantly, though, each of those games was played in a dome. Same with the 2012 game set for Indianapolis.
Meaning the buildup was miserable for fans, but at least the game itself was not held hostage by the elements.
Those will have been the only four of 48 Super Bowls played in harsh-winter cities before the justawarded 2014 game, which will set a Super Bowl record for low temperatures and possibly be the first Super Bowl beset by snow.
Yeah, some of the playoff games leading up to the Super Bowl are held in wintry conditions, but those are home-field advantage situations.
Super Bowls are designed to be neutral-site games in mild climates - played in conditions that allow the skills of the teams to dictate the result more than the whim of the weather.
That will stop being the case for the first time in 2014, because the NFL on Tuesday decided that rewarding a couple of owners for seeing a new stadium built was more important than allowing its two best teams to play its biggest game under optimum conditions.
Sports, Pages 18 on 05/27/2010