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Start Spreading the Salt

Unlike my former colleague Charles Pierce, I have no particular objection to holding a Super Bowl in New York City. Who knows? Given global warming, by February 2, 2114 the evening temperature in the Meadowlands might be around 40 or so. Even if it isn't, the odds are it'll be no worse than in the high 20s and windy. Always windy in the Meadowlands.

Those conditions aren't competitively unfair. They are uncomfortable for fans in the seats, but there aren't many football fans, including moi, who haven't experienced worse. It's a game built on who suffers physical pain best. Fans are hardly immune from that ethos. This Super Bowl will be full of fans full of alcohol, like every other Super Bowl. They'll take the cold, then brag about it when they get home.

No, why I think the NFL has gone awry isn't climatology, it's just plain old geography. The leagye may be creating a financial catastrophe not because it ignored Standard & Poor's, but because it forgot Rand-McNally.

As an economic venture, hosting a Super Bowl places 100 percent of the risk on the host city. It pays a bundle in a zillion different ways to put on the event and in return it rakes off the skim from tourism -- meals taxes, hotel taxes, etc. This is a perfectly viable economic model. Until lately, it was the entire model for New Orleans.

But the reality of the Super Bowl experience is as follows. Three kinds of people come to the game, and I will discuss them in the order of their appearance.

The first is the NFL community. It takes one hell of a lot of league employees to make this mega-event go smoothly, and they all work like dogs. They arrive the day after the conference championship games.

The second group is the media. They get there the Sunday or at latest Monday the week before the game. You're talking 2000 people. That is nothing in tourism terms, and they are all in at cut rates, either earned through points or because of NFL fiat. In one of his last acts in office, I saw Pete Rozelle have a hotel barman reassigned because he had had the audacity to accept a tip from a sportswriter. We (should I still say we?) don't pay much.

Group three is the fans. They come in on Thursday and Friday before the game. They come in two groups -- the big shots and the real fans of the two teams.

The big shots need not concern us. Since many of them live in New York, they'll be sleeping at home, and not spending any more money in the tristate area than they usually do. Tough noogies for the tax authorities in New York and New Jersey.

Which leaves the fans. But which fans? There's the question that could make the Tony Soprano Super Bowl a fiscal crater for all concerned.

The thing about the Super Bowl for a fan is that a ticket to the game is the easiest and relatively least expensive part of the deal. Upfront cash and nerve will get a good capitalist a ticket for at the worst no more than twice face value. Wait until Sunday noon, face value. The problems are, in order of difficulty, getting a place to stay and transportation costs.

What if neither of those exist?

Start with the ultimate nightmare. Jets-Giants. No tourists at all. Given the history of the two franchises, I can see why the NFL would take that risk.

But let's consider NFL geography. For fans of the Patriots, Bills, Eagles, Ravens and Redskins, a Meadowlands Super Bowl is a day trip, or at most an overnight. For fans of the Panthers, Browns, Steelers or Bengals, it's a very doable weekend, as in fly-in Saturday, score ticket on Sunday, leave early Monday.

That's 10 of 32 NFL franchises for whom a New York Super Bowl would be a bonanza for fans, and a bummer for hoteliers, bonifaces, and maitre d's in the city and its environs. There is, in short, about a 1 in 6 chance this Super Bowl will have almost no positive economic impact on the host city.

New York won't notice. It's too big. Other potential host cities, however, may notice. I would think that the fine communities of northern New Jersey, who will suffer a large part of the expense in return for approximately 0.0003 percent of the skim, will notice most of all.

posted by Michael Gee @ 6:17 PM