The three cities vying to host the 2018 Super Bowl entered the home stretch Wednesday.
Organizers
in Indianapolis and Minneapolis held news conferences to say they had
formally distributed their bids to the 32 team owners, though neither
group was willing to provide many specifics to the public. New Orleans
organizers were even quieter.
With a May 20 vote looming, nobody wanted to give away any secret strategies.
''It's
a very competitive process,'' Indy bid chairwoman Allison Melangton
said. ''We've got 13 days to go and we want to take every competitive
advantage we've got.''
Sorting out this contest could be a tough one for the owners.
Minneapolis
will have a brand new stadium by 2018 and is hoping to join the long
list of cities that invested hundreds of millions of dollars in shiny,
new facilities. The NFL has frequently rewarded those cities, including
Dallas, Indy and New York, with Super Bowls, though not always on the
city's first bid. Minneapolis last hosted the 1992 Super Bowl.
New
Orleans will build its pitch around the fact it has hosted 10 Super
Bowls, tied for the most with Miami, and would like the NFL's title game
to be a prominent feature in the city's 2018 tricentennial celebration.
When the city last hosted the game, in 2013, a blackout caused a
34-minute delay of the game between Baltimore and San Francisco.
Indianapolis
had the fewest problems of any recent host and the 2012 game was widely
praised by fans, media and league officials with only one major
complaint - not enough downtown hotel rooms. Indy organizers noted in
their 900-page bid that two more large downtown hotels could be
completed in time for the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment