Countdown to Super Bowl XLVI: Studying what might work when the SB comes to New York - Ingles
He had passed the spot where fans could pose with the Lombardi Trophy. Had stared at the college draft set that provides another photo opportunity. Had stopped in front of the stage where a series of musical guests would entertain the masses. The immense N.F.L. Experience — the league’s fan-participation carnival and merchandise mart that runs during the week before the Super Bowl — was laid out before Al Kelly when a thought popped into his head.
“To ask an unglamorous question, have bathrooms been an issue?” Kelly asked. “No typical ladies’ room hassles?”
No, Kelly was told.
“But we had questions about lactation rooms,” added Mary Pat Augenthaler, the N.F.L.’s vice president for events.
That is probably not a matter that Kelly had to grapple with personally as the president of American Express. But as the chief executive of the host committee for the 2014 New York-New Jersey Super Bowl, Kelly has immersed himself in the staggering minutiae that an event of this magnitude entails. A series of walking tours — the N.F.L. Experience; Lucas Oil Stadium; the N.F.L. House, a concierge service for high rollers — gave Kelly an up-close look at Indianapolis’s so-far seamless week.
From the moment Kelly got off the plane Wednesday, he was consumed with questions like, how did the decals at the Indianapolis airport — which included a Super Bowl logo on each jetway — get attached? But in a one-hour visit to the N.F.L. Experience, Kelly dived headfirst into the mind-numbing details that keep that 900,000-square-foot behemoth functioning.
How long do people wait in line for a photograph with the Lombardi Trophy? Where do you store the slab of artificial turf that is laid down for a mini-game? What happens to the tents if there is heavy snow? Can a player refuse to let his hands and biceps be measured and cast in plaster so fans can measure themselves against them?
Who runs the memorabilia shop? What about food? How big is the theater that was constructed for a 13-minute piece by NFL Films? That mammoth edifice at the entrance to the Verizon station — what is it made of? What is Bridgestone doing with all those black mini-footballs? Is there a lot of bickering among sponsors over placement?
Kelly looked up at signage and down at carpet. He asked how long visitors stayed in the N.F.L. Experience and whether they were given a map when they arrived. And how do organizers know when they leave, so the place does not get overcrowded?
“On Monday morning, I’ll have a much better idea of how much I learned,” Kelly said. “If we pick up one or two terrific ideas or things that definitely don’t work, it’s valuable.”
Planning for the New York-area Super Bowl in 2014 remains in its earliest stages, with organizers still considering even the most remote possibilities. When Augenthaler mentioned that it may not be possible to have another Super Bowl fanfest without a zip line — the phenomenally popular thrill ride erected high above two city blocks here — the conversation turned to whether Manhattan streets could be closed off so a zip line could be installed near Times Square.
In the spring, organizers will begin to decide what will go where. That is probably when it will become clear how little might translate from Indianapolis.
“It’s not apples to apples,” said Dianna Boyce, a spokeswoman for the Indianapolis host committee.
Indianapolis has been lauded for the compactness and convenience of its layout, with all the attractions and the stadium within steps of the downtown hotels. It is, in many ways, similar to New Orleans, which will host the Super Bowl next year and which also sent a representative to Indianapolis this week.
But it is almost the exact opposite of what a New York area Super Bowl will be like. In 2014, the teams will stay and practice in New Jersey — and the game, of course, will be played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford — but many of the fan events will be in Manhattan, giving that Super Bowl a much more sprawling footprint than Indianapolis has. The New York Super Bowl logo even depicts the George Washington Bridge spanning the Hudson River and a giant snowflake, a not so subtle reminder that the top priority will be to make sure a zip line will not be the only way to get around quickly.
Kelly said he was certain that New York and New Jersey officials understood the importance of clearing roads quickly if it snowed. His biggest weather-related concern is that there will be poor conditions several days before the game, which would delay flights and keep visitors, and their wallets, away. Dealing with bad weather is another thing Kelly cannot learn from Indianapolis, where temperatures reached into the 60s this week.
Kelly reached the end of the N.F.L. Experience and looked out the vast windows to see crowded sidewalks below the zip line. Organizers here created a Super Bowl village, modeling it after an Olympic village, by closing off a few streets to create a pedestrian mall. Could a village, Kelly mused, be created in Newark?
“Given that 35 percent of tickets go to the fan bases, I think a lot will look to come into Newark and day-trip it to Manhattan one or two times for a Broadway show,” Kelly said. “They’ll find it easier and more affordable in New Jersey.”
Kelly took one look at the locker-room replica in the N.F.L. Experience — which used photos taken inside the Colts’ locker room because they are the home team — and realized he would have to have photos of both the Giants and the Jets, with careful attention paid to equal use and placement.
“Believe me, I know that,” Kelly said.
The New York area does not have an indoor space big enough to house the N.F.L. Experience as it is currently constructed. But Kelly noted that exhibitions could be squeezed tighter. Kelly and the N.F.L. will also have to answer a chicken-or-the-egg question: does the experience need to have more in New York because there are so many more people in the region, or will the bounty of entertainment options available make a sprawling N.F.L. Experience less of a focal point for fans?
“The only Super Bowl that is really comparable, and I spent a lot of time talking to them, is probably Dallas,” Kelly said.
That will make those who endured the Dallas Super Bowl last year cringe. It was crippled by an ice storm, and then embarrassed by a temporary seating fiasco on game day. Kelly did not go to Dallas last year, but he said it taught him one important lesson about how to plan for poor weather.
“You have to localize it and break it into pieces,” Kelly said. “When we have to get volunteers, somebody who lives in Bergen County, you’ve got to assign to Bergen County. We’re going to have to subdivide the geography. Treat Brooklyn as an area, Newark as an area.”
On Sunday, Kelly said, he will pay close attention to how quickly fans clear security and get into the stadium. He worries that on a cold day, the wind in the Meadowlands parking lots could make a long wait to enter the stadium excruciating.
“People in our region of the country are not known for our patience,” he said.
Perhaps not. But before Kelly landed here, he knew that a Super Bowl in New York and New Jersey already had an advantage that even the flawless organization and Midwestern friendliness of Indianapolis’s week could not conjure.
“I bet Indianapolis would be liking this even more if they had a thousand more hotel rooms,” Kelly said. “And a few more restaurants.”
This article was written by Judy Battista and appeared in the New York Times.
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