Super Bowl XLVIII hasn’t even been played yet, but owners of the Giants and Jets are so convinced it will be a success they hope to host one every 10 years.
They also see the first open-air Super Bowl held in a northern city going so well that it ushers in a new era of the NFL regularly putting the game in cold-weather locales.
“Why not?” Giants co-owner John Mara said at a Super Bowl kickoff press conference Monday in Midtown when asked if the game could eventually be hosted by such frigid-in-February cities as Denver, Chicago or Boston.
Jets owner Woody Johnson agreed, saying cold weather and the elements are part of the fiber of the sport of football itself.
“I would think [other cold-weather cities could host the Super Bowl], because after all, the game is played in all kinds of weather,” Johnson said. “So why isn’t the Super Bowl played in all kinds of weather? So, yeah, I think it would be very positive.”
Giants treasurer Jonathan Tisch took it one step further, revealing at the press conference at the NFL’s Super Bowl headquarters the two local teams hope to make MetLife Stadium a once-per-decade member of the league’s rotation for the game.
Citing the league’s claim (disputed by many economists) the Super Bowl will pump as much as $600 million into the regional economy over the next week, Tisch said the Giants and Jets are now aiming higher.
“Hopefully, when we do all the tallying, the other 30 owners will say to themselves, ‘Super Bowl XLVIII in New York and New Jersey was a huge success, so let’s try and do this once every 10 years,’ ’’ Tisch said.
The local teams have long embraced the possibility of snow and frigid weather for the game, even making a snowflake a prominent part of the Super Bowl XLVIII logo, but forecasts Monday indicated the game might not even end up being the coldest in the game’s history.
The current record-holder for coldest Super Bowl is the Cowboys’ 24-3 win in over the Dolphins in Super Bowl VI in 1972 at New Orleans’ Tulane Stadium, which was 39 degrees at kickoff.
Some forecasts said the temperature in East Rutherford could be as high as 40 degrees on Sunday, which — if that comes about — would disappoint the local organizers.
Johnson was adamant, saying “it’s pretty safe” that this week’s game go down as the coldest ever, while Mara said he’s hoping to set the record but not have the weather be too rough.
“You want the people in the stands to be comfortable, so you’re certainly not hoping for frigid conditions,” Mara said. “You don’t want it affecting the game on the field or, probably more importantly, you want the fans to be comfortable.”
Johnson and Mara said they had long ago gotten over the Jets and Giants missing out on their chance to be the first teams to play a Super Bowl in their home stadium.
They weren’t as comfortable with the idea of having their practice facilities occupied by other teams (the Broncos are practicing at the Jets’ complex in Florham Park, while the Seahawks are training at the Giants’ site next to MetLife Stadium), but both chose to look at the bright side.
“It could have been worse,” Mara said, only half-joking, considering the arch-rival Cowboys and Eagles could have practiced in those spots instead out of this year’s playoff field.
Johnson admitted he was relieved when New England lost to Denver in the AFC Championship Game.
“We’d rather have somebody that’s not in our division,” he said.
But both owners said that is a minor inconvenience, especially compared with the larger benefits of hosting a Super Bowl.
Those are benefits Johnson and Mara would like to see shared by owners in other cold-weather cities, with one exception.
“Would I rule out any city based on weather? I don’t think so,” Mara said. “Except for maybe Green Bay. Not enough hotel rooms.”