Countdown to Super Bowl XLVI - Is Indy a test? - ingles

Forget the palm trees and balmy poolside barbecues. The thousands of fans and sports business moguls who spend freely to make Super Bowl weekend a non-stop party will need to prepare for dreary cold or climate-controlled comfort of the great indoors.

Detroit was the last cold weather city to hold the Super Bowl, on Feb. 5, 2005. Fans tried to stay warm waiting to enter Ford Field.

America's roman-numeraled sports holiday comes to Indianapolis this week for version XLVI and another sidetrip to a palatial new facility off the NFL's traditional track of sun-splashed championship climes. This one is a sop to taxpayers who put more than $1 billion toward retractable-roofed Lucas Oil Stadium, which kept the Colts in town, and other municipal improvements aimed at economic impact from Super Week and business far beyond.

But it also could be Step I of a process that convinces the league's owners to award their coveted event to more cold-weather sites — a snow and ice storm last year the week before the Super Bowl in Dallas, notwithstanding.

In 2014, after making its 10th visit to New Orleans, the Super Bowl will tempt meteorological fate with a stop in the New York area and an open-air staging at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. That will be the NFL's first outdoor title game at a northern site since the Super Bowl era began following the 1966 season.

Indianapolis is putting the finishing touches on preparing for an extravaganza that doesn't cower from the weather but doesn't ignore it.

New York Giants owner John Mara believes the Indianapolis and New York-New Jersey experiences will go a long way toward determining where future Super Bowls are played. He noted that many of the NFL's most memorable games were played in breath-freezing conditions — think Dallas Cowboys-Green Bay Packers in the 1967 Ice Bowl at Lambeau Field— and pointed to Washington, D.C., and Chicago as other potentially intriguing northern sites.

In 2006, Detroit played host to Super Bowl XL at domed Ford Field, which had opened in 2002. (The Super Bowl also has been played just outside Detroit, at the Pontiac Silverdome, in 1982, and in Minneapolis in 1992.)

"I think there are some other cold-weather sites that would have a chance," Mara says. "There are some other owners who are against doing that, but obviously we had enough votes needed to get it here."

It is hardly coincidental that, like Detroit for the 2006 game, Indianapolis and New York-New Jersey were awarded Super Bowls after opening state-of-the-art stadiums.

"There is a high expectation that if you get a new stadium built in a cold-weather site with a dome, or a retractable roof in our case, that you will have a great opportunity to host," Colts owner Jim Irsay says. "Owners do recognize the importance of bringing the Super Bowl to a public-private partnership."

Says New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft: "We are going to those communities where public money is involved and saying, 'Thank you.' "

MetLife Stadium was privately financed, but Kraft notes that the impetus to experiment with an outdoor game in the New York area began with the terrorist attacks on 9/11 that leveled the World Trade Center.

"I look at the New York metropolitan area as the financial hub of the planet," he says. "It represents so much of Americana that they deserved it with the symbolism of holding it there."

Cities and regions among the NFL's old reliables for the Super Bowl are no longer taking for granted their status as preferred sites.

South Florida is the current leader with 10 Super Bowls hosted at the Orange Bowl in Miami or the facility now known as Sun Life Stadium, which is located between Miami and Fort Lauderdale in Miami Gardens. But the Miami Dolphins are pushing for public funds to renovate Sun Life Stadium, with an eye toward enhancing a bid for the 50th Super Bowl in 2016; that's the next one whose site has not been decided.

"We believe we have the premier, No. 1 destination for the game," Dolphins CEO Mike Dee says. "We have to make sure we don't squander that advantage."

Southern California, with the Los Angeles Coliseum— site of Super Bowl I— and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, has been the third-most frequent Super Bowl locale. But the game has not been there since 1993 as the league works to again establish a team in the region.

A 'difference-maker'

Indianapolis has spent and spent some more for an opportunity that Irsay calls a "difference-maker" for the city and state.

According to The Indianapolis Star, taxpayers footed 87% of the $720 million cost of 67,500-seat Lucas Oil Stadium, which opened in 2007, in exchange for a 30-year commitment from the Colts. An investment of $275 million nearly doubled the size of the Indiana Convention Center. Another $187 million was spent on infrastructure.

Mike Murphy, who retired in 2010 after 16 years as a Republican state legislator, says he had his doubts when all of this was being debated.

"I was a skeptic at the time based on some of the tax increases levied in order to pay for it," he says. "I must say I've become a convert over the years. The building has become not only a symbolic but a practical gathering spot for the community" because it has become the site of cheerleading and band contests and state high school football championships.

"You can't look at the expense," Indianapolis Mayor Gregory Ballard says. "You have to look at the return."

The city expects between 100,000 and 150,000 visitors during Super Bowl week. At least some of those guests will be surveyed about their expenses in an effort to determine the immediate economic impact of their stay. The Super Bowl hotel block consists of 18,300 rooms.

Mark Miles, board chairman of the 2012 Super Bowl Host Committee, believes dollars spent are a relatively minor measure of the importance of landing the game.

"It's the image," he says. "You can't quantify the value of being a Super Bowl city."

Ballard echoes that point. "Very few cities have hosted Super Bowls, when you look at it," he says. "The ability to host a Super Bowl puts in people's minds a city that can come together and get things done."

It will not be known for years whether Indianapolis' massive investment will result in attracting new business and more traffic for a convention center that nearly doubled its exhibit space to 550,000 square feet. Ballard, after studying the experiences of other cities, is confident that it will.

"Sixty-five percent of people who attend Super Bowls are decision-makers," he says, "and the overriding comment of people coming to Indianapolis for the first time is 'I never knew.'

"We want people who make decisions for organizations to see what a great city it is, how things get done and to see our connected downtown. We think it will lead to quite a few business opportunities and convention opportunities."

The potential is there. According to city officials, more than half of the U.S. population lives within a one-day drive of what they like to call "the crossroads of America." Nine NFL franchises are within 400 miles.

Village could be model

Fans who braved unexpectedly icy roads in and around Dallas last year will welcome the convenience Indianapolis offers. Skywalks connect much of the downtown, ensuring ease of pedestrian traffic no matter how frightful the weather. According to the host committee, there are 7,100 hotel rooms, 200 restaurants and 50 attractions within walking distance of the stadium.

Not that Indianapolis or New York is running from the weather issue. New York has a snowflake in the center of its Super Bowl logo while Indianapolis expects a winter festival atmosphere at its innovative Super Bowl Village. More than 60 live performances are scheduled there with headliners such as Patti LaBelle, LMFAO, and Dierks Bentley. There will be rides on zip lines 96 feet above the ground. Warming stations, too.

According to Miles, the three-block-long Village was patterned after entertainment venues used to bring diverse fans together at Winter Olympics.

"If that works for the Super Bowl crowd the way we've seen it in the mind's eye for four years," he says, "it will create an additional model for northern cities and for the league."

The NFL, the host committee and private event organizers also have taken the weather into account in their offerings, providing plenty of indoor options. One page of the official visitors guide is titled "Baby, It's Cold Outside! Come On In & Get Warm" — and it lists options such as the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library.

More football-centric fans could, for the first time, buy a ticket allowing them to sit in the stands for Tuesday's media day at the stadium; the 6,700 available sold out, according to host committee spokeswoman Dianna Boyce. Stadium tours, which include time on the field and in the team locker room, also are for sale.

Then there is DirecTV's Celebrity Beach Bowl, Feb. 4 — an event that actually occurred on the beach prior to the Super Bowl two years ago in South Florida. As was the case in Dallas last year, it's being held on tons of sand that's been hauled into an enormous, temporary structure; this one covers the outfield of Indianapolis' downtown baseball stadium. It will host the open-to-the-public flag football game and concert in the afternoon and an invitation-only event at night.

The indoor highlight, however, seems likely to be the NFL Experience, an interactive theme park at the convention center. Frank Supovitz, NFL senior vice president for events, notes that it has sold 40,000 tickets. "That's better than twice what we would have expected anywhere else," he says.

(source USA Today)