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2014 Super Bowl Awarded To New York/New Jersey

APTOPIX Super Bowl FootballIn four years, we will have the first-ever Super Bowl in an open-air stadium in the North:

IRVING, Tex. — National Football League owners, lured by playing the sport’s biggest game on the largest stage, combined with the promise that snow would not grind the event to a halt, awarded the 2014 Super Bowl to New York on Tuesday afternoon, making the New Meadowlands Stadium the host of what will be the first cold-weather Super Bowl.

The New York-New Jersey bid beat out proposals from Tampa, Fla., and South Florida — two traditional hosts — in part to reward the Giants and the Jets for building a new billion-dollar stadium together, a tactic the N.F.L. has used when they have placed the game in Detroit, Dallas and Indianapolis.

But the vote also represented an embrace of New York’s abundant entertainment, promotional and financial opportunities. The proposal called for everything from a Super Bowl float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade to a party at Liberty State Park. Of more interest to a league bent on building revenue and an international audience is that the weeklong extravaganza would play out in the global media and business capital, and in an area where 36 percent of the 20 million people who live in the region were born outside the United States.

Those considerations outweighed concerns by some owners opposed to a cold-weather game that snow could wreak havoc on a week’s worth of parties and planning and that the outcome of the championship game could be affected by foul weather. In bid materials obtained by The New York Times, the organizers promised everything from hand-warmers to fire pits in the parking lots to keep fans comfortable and snowplows to clear the streets.

“Elements can be a common factor in how a season unfolds, so why can’t it be a factor in how the ultimate championship is determined,” Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys’ owner and a proponent of the New York Super Bowl, said before the vote was taken.

February in the Northeast. What could possibly go wrong ?

 
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