There’s strong precedent for new NFL stadiums getting to host a Super Bowl — the last nine did — and the lure of major events is a common talking point when teams line up for financial help from taxpayers. Many people continue to labor under a belief that new stadiums always get a new Super Bowl. But precedent isn’t the same as policy, and the NFL’s top two executives have made it clear in recent weeks that a new venue is far from sufficient to host the big game.
“There’s a lot more that goes into hosting the Super Bowl than a stadium,” said Peter O’Reilly, the NFL EVP who oversees the Super Bowl. “You need tens of thousands of hotel rooms and an airport that can satisfy the demand. It is a key element, but it is not the element.”
That was even clearer than his boss, Commissioner Roger Goodell, who diplomatically mentioned hotels and airports while celebrating the Browns’ new stadium groundbreaking outside Cleveland in April. “We have probably close to 200,000 people who come into the city,” Goodell said. “It’s great for economic impact, but it’s hard for cities to be able to meet some of those requirements on facilities. So that’s the biggest challenge.”
O’Reilly’s remarks came moments after Nashville was awarded its first Super Bowl on Tuesday. Clearly, that’s a direct result of the city and the Titans building the new, enclosed Nissan Stadium, so it may appear that it’s another data point in favor of the new stadium-Super Bowl connection. But in reality, Nashville underscores O’Reilly’s point, because Nashville’s Super Bowl win only came after the region’s multi-decade growth as a center of culture and entertainment. Can Denver, Kansas City, Cleveland or Buffalo say the same, even with new venues? (Buffalo has always known it can’t host a Super Bowl. One reason its new stadium is open-air.)
What about weather?
Meanwhile, two big markets with new stadiums planned — Chicago and Washington — undoubtedly clear the basic infrastructure bar, but they might face a different challenge: Weather. Their indoor stadiums don’t preclude the real nightmare scenario for the Super Bowl, a major snow or ice event a few days before the game.
This week’s win for Nashville raised this question anew. Nashville will be the Super Bowl host most likely to get extreme cold, snow or ice since Minneapolis in 2018, which is a rather difficult memory for many Super Bowl week regulars, and is farther north than Dallas and Atlanta, two cities with snow/ice-marred Super Bowl weeks in their resume. A big storm would hardly be unprecedented in Nashville.
The league was OK with the climate data in central Tennessee, O’Reilly told me. “It’s a factor,” he acknowledged. “... We do our research and look at what February looks like there. I think the average temperatures, which are a high of like 55 [Fahrenheit], is right in the range of what we’re comfortable with.”
I followed up: “As long as you consider that something under 32 is a true outlier event?” O’Reilly said: “I think that’s right.”
I will note that winter weather would not be an outlier event in Chicago or Washington, but the point isn’t to rule cities in or out based on a single factor. (The value of a Super Bowl within a few miles of every foreign embassy, the White House and Capitol Hill is self-evident, even if it could get cold.)
The point is that Super Bowl hosting is much, much more competitive than it used to be with Allegiant and SoFi stadiums in the mix, and as the event grows, the league sees fewer reasons to tolerate risk, and Nashville’s quick construction-to-Super Bowl path will likely prove to be the exception, not the rule, in this modern building boom.
