It’ll be a field of dreams smack in the middle of Times Square.
NFL officials joined Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall yesterday to announce that Broadway from 34th to 44th streets would be cordoned off for four days preceding next year’s Super Bowl XLVIII in the Jersey Meadowlands for a giant football extravaganza.
A lineup of free events will be scheduled from noon to 11 p.m. daily.
Among the offerings: nightly concerts on multiple stages; football clinics and competitions; player autographs; NFL Network theater; live broadcasts and the display of the Vince Lombardi Trophy that goes to the Super Bowl champ.
“This is one for the history books,” promised Giants co-owner Jonathan Tisch.
“We’ve come up with ambitious plans that really are unprecedented even by Super Bowl standards,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
He said he plans to outdo the zip line featured in Indianapolis during last year’s Super Bowl, as soon as he can figure something out.
“I don’t know what it is, but we’ve got to match that,” said Goodell.
It was all very upbeat and for good reason.
The first Super Bowl to be played in a cold-weather location outdoors is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of high-spending fans to the Big Apple at a low point in the tourist season. The media contingent alone was estimated at 5,000.
“The Super Bowl is not just a game anymore,” Goodell said. “It’s really a week of events, hundreds of events.”
NFL honchos went out of their way to ensure that New Jersey wasn’t left out of the discussion, saying 4,000 hotel rooms have already been reserved in the Garden State, both Super Bowl teams would practice there and post- and pre-game parties would be held across the Hudson.
“Why don’t we have the game in New Jersey? Would that be good,” Bloomberg said sarcastically when a reporter pressed the question.