Next year’s Super Bowl will be played at Metlife Stadium on Feb.2. Or some time around then.
According to a report in SportsBusiness Daily, the NFL has prepared an “extensive contingency plan” in case the first outdoors, cold-weather Super Bowl is faced with a weather emergency. If such an event, like a blizzard, were to occur, the league could delay the Super Bowl several days or even decide to play the game on Saturday, Feb. 1, if the threat of a storm were to hit the next day.
“We have to look at all the angles: storm arriving day-of-game, storm arriving prior to game, storm arriving after game,” one source told the website.
The idea of rescheduling the nation’s largest sporting event would create several travel issues for the thousands of fans and media members traveling to the game.
“You know it will be a lot cooler, but there will be a lot of people and transportation issues regardless,” said Jeff Miller, NFL vice president of security. “When you have a lot of moving parts and large crowds, you are moving on transportation systems already overloaded with daily commuters, so you’ve got some issues to deal with.”