Super Bowl 2014 is being held in New York. Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that the weather will not be an issue, but if it's cold and snowing, how will the players handle it?
With freezing temperatures being recorded around the Northeast on Thursday, many in the media have started to speculate about how bad the weather will be in 2014 when the Super Bowl is being played in New York.
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke about some of the details and features of the big game for next season and said that they are not expecting to have a weather problem despite the current harsh temperatures.
According to ESPNNewYork.com, Gooddell said that league is "thrilled" that next year's Super Bowl is being hosted in the New York region and that the group will be prepared foir any weather events.
"We made this decision (to play the game here), obviously not knowing what the weather would be, but football is made to be played in the elements," Goodell said Thursday during a news conference at City Hall, adding that temperatures are forecast to be about 50 degrees next week.
The press conference was attended by Goodell, New York Giants co-owners John Mara and Jonathan Tisch, and New York Jets owner Woody Johnson.
"This city depends on tourism, it depends on people having good feelings about New York, to come here to get an education, medical care, to start a business, to work, to entertain themselves and expand their minds, and the Super Bowl is another one," Bloomberg said. "We know how to handle big events and this one will go off as a textbook example of what you should do."
Super Bowl XLVIII will be played Feb. 2, 2014, at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., and is the first Super Bowl played outdoors in a cold-weather region.
"We're gonna celebrate the game here. We're gonna celebrate the weather here. We're gonna make it a great experience," he said.
Bloomberg made light of the idea of harsh weather, say9ing that both teams will have to deal with it.
Wait a second, let me just get this straight, the weather, whatever it is, is gonna be the same on both ends of the stadium, right?" New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "And in any case, they swap ends, in case it isn't.
He also spoke about his experiences with sports in the cold.
"I grew up in a world ... the best game I ever went to ... I was 16 years old, it was a long time ago, folks, but I really do remember it was the Colts-Giants at Yankee Stadium (the NFL championship game in 1958)." Bloomberg said. "I went to a lot of Giants games at Yankee Stadium. Sometimes it was cold. Sometimes it wasn't. But football is a game -- I've always thought -- I grew up in a world where it was played outdoors in the real weather. It's one of those things that makes it special."
Bloomberg said that transportation should not be a problem, since New York has a range of large events every year.
"This is not something we're gonna do for the first time," he said. "That stadium fills up every Sunday for three to four months. This is not any different. The mass transit system can handle it. New York is capable of handling big events."
The media center for the game, which will have over 5,000 media member working, will be held at the Sheraton in Times Square. The Media Day interviews will be held at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, that state's governor, Chris Christie, said today.
"The Super Bowl is not just a game anymore," Goodell said. "It's a week of events."
The press conference gave the two an opportunity to release some of the details of next year's game and festivities. Some include the creation of a ""Super Bowl Boulevard," a massive fan event with free admission in midtown Manhattan that will take place from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1. Fans will be able to see the Vince Lombardi Trophy, catch nightly concerts and check out NFL-themed exhibits."
There also were details released on how the two teams will prepare for the game, with the NCF squad working out and practicing at the Giants' practice facility in East Rutherford, N.J., while the AFC team will practice at the Jets' facility in Florham Park, N.J. Both teams will stay at hotels in New Jersey.
The Super Bowl is a good way to bring revenue into the city and according to ESPN, one study said that the game in New York could bring in $550 million to $600 million. No team has ever played the Super Bowl in their home stadium, but the odds of that happening has never been better, since the Jets and the Giants play in the same stadium.
According to Bloomberg News, "from 1970 to 2001, the Super Bowl brought an average of $92 million."
While the Jets will not be going into next season as Super Bowl contenders after finishing with a 6-10 record, the Giants will likely be one of the teams in the playoffs next season after missing out in 2012. The defending Super Bowl champions know what it's like to play in February and will likely be even more determined when they know the game will be in their home stadium.
The Giants went 9-7 this season after winning their final game against the Philadelphia Eagles, but missed the playoffs after taking home the championship one year ago. The team had chances to clinch, but could not win important games over the Falcons and the Ravens, two teams that made it to the final four.
New York started off 6-2 off of string play from Victor Cruz and Eli Manning, but both sides of the ball struggled over the second half of the season, leaving the Giants at home. When they won the Super Bowl in 2008, the team finished the following year as one of the best teams in football and received a first-round bye in the playoffs, but they lost to the Eagles and were one-and-done.
The Super Bowl has been played in cold-weather cities like Detroit and in Dallas (where the weather was frigid), but both of those places had domes. This will be the first Super Bowl of its kind and could feature snow, rain or a mix of the two, adding an "old-school" football feel to the game.
During the Detroit Super Bowl in 1982, the Cincinnati Bengals got stuck in snow on their team buses while trying to get to the Silverdome. Bloomberg and Goodell have high hopes that something like that wont happen, but the weather in New York can be unpredictable.
There was the crippling storm of 2010 that blanketed the region in snow and of course there was Hurricane Sandy late last year.
"I think New York City is already the nation's Super Bowl champion of tourism," Bloomberg said.
Either way, both teams will likely need their hand-warmers when it comes time for Super Bowl 2014.
