And we are here.
It was 1,349 days ago, inside a ballroom at the Omni Mandalay Las Colinas in Irving, Texas, when the NFL’s owners made us sweat like an old-time candidate at a presidential convention, going through a second, and then a third, and then a fourth ballot, debating the site of Super Bowl XLVIII.
And it was just past 4 p.m. on May 25, 2010, when Roger Goodell emerged from that virtual backroom, stepped in front of a microphone, and ended the wait: The Super Bowl would officially be shedding its little-town blues, would officially be coming to New York for much of the hoopla surrounding the Big Game, and to New Jersey for the game itself.
“It felt like we had forever to plan and to wait for this,” Jets owner Woody Johnson, who co-chaired the Super Bowl Committee with Giants co-owner Jonathan Tisch, said this past week. “And now we’re only days away from seeing it become a reality.”
And now we’re only hours away.
It was Tisch who expressed hope that same day that this event would be such a smashing success that New York and New Jersey would be considered for a permanent place in the Super Bowl rotation, alongside the sunny getaway cities and dome-capped towns among which this game has shuttled the past 47 years.
And it was John Mara, his business partner, who winced and smiled simultaneously and said, “Let’s just get through Sunday first.”
Well, judging by the crowds that enjoyed Super Bowl Boulevard, and the throngs who visited the various velvet-rope pregame celebrations, there is little doubt that the NFL, and football fans from Denver and Seattle and everywhere else, thoroughly enjoyed their stay in Fun City.
And the weather — well, after 1,349 consecutive days of fretting about blizzards and winter vortexes and Nor’easters, after so much hand-wringing and stomach-churning, so many migraines and ulcers, every indication is that today will be splendid. No one will get a suntan, but nobody’s going to get a sunburn, either: high of 49, low of 29, 10 percent chance of precipitation, winds below 10 mph.
Football weather, in other words.
Will that be enough to assure a return to Gotham anytime soon? It isn’t likely. As it was, even with a significant groundswell to get the game here, there was plenty of arm-twisting and tap-dancing and back-scratching in Irving, back in 2010, just to get it here once.
Miami wanted the game. So did Tampa. That created a crowded ballot box since both had the two things the NFL covets most with its host cities: (1.) Thousands upon thousand of hotel rooms; and (2.) Sunshine and warm temperatures. We could guarantee only half those prereqs.
And so we waited. A bloc of towns tried to block the New York momentum: Cold-weather allies Baltimore and Buffalo, warm-weather adversaries Phoenix and Houston. This had never been done before, and in the NFL, often that’s the only reason necessary to go with what’s always been done.
But now it has been done. The city was ready. Jersey was ready. Manhattan was ready. Players from both the Seahawks and the Broncos raved about the hospitality they enjoyed on the west side of the Hudson, and they eagerly partook in all that’s available on the eastern side, at least until game preparation began in earnest on Wednesday.
And we are here.
Despite Tisch’s wishes, we probably won’t be here again, unless someone wants to donate a roof for MetLife Stadium.
This was our moment, and we seized it, New Jersey and New York, Garden State and Empire State, and by 10:30 or so Sunday night, we will all have survived, and thrived, and provided a splendid backdrop for Peyton Manning’s coronation, or Russell Wilson’s inauguration, for a Broncos stampede or a Seahawks soar.
The Super Bowl will have made it here.
From now on, it can make it anywhere.