Super Bowl 2014 in New York? Who's Kidding Who?

It appears that New York and Tampa Bay are the leading contenders to host the 2014 Super Bowl, which suggests that the NFL owners who vote on this decision need to start testing their own people for recreational drug use.

Tampa Bay or New York (er, New Jersey) -- in February? That's a contest? Really?

Seventy-five percent -- i.e. 24 of the 32 NFL team owners -- must approve of a Super Bowl site, but it's a cinch that the only ones who will be out in the windswept tundra of the Meadowlands in February of that year will be the owners of the two competing teams -- and maybe the owners of the Jets and Giants, and maybe not even them.

The case for Tampa -- or more precisely, the case against New York -- was perfectly articulated by Gary Myers in the Daily News. "They obviously did a great job building a new stadium," Myers quotes Denver Broncos Pat Bowlan as saying. "It's a great city. The one bogey out there is the weather. I have the same problem in Denver. We play in January, we say it really doesn't matter. You scrape the snow off and play. It's more about the game and the fans."

But, asks Myers, "Is it fair to ask fans to pay $1000 per ticket and then potentially sit in uncomfortable conditions?" It's a question the rest of the league is blithely ignoring, giving in to pressure from the Jets and Giants managements.

You couldn't pick a worse time of year to play an outdoor game in the New York area, and it's likely that many, if not most, of the fans would be coming here from warmer climates. Bowlan's lunkheaded response to this issue is, "If they don't want to go and watch it in the stadium, they can watch it on television." That's great. Will there be enough high-def televisions in the lounge areas for all the fans to watch the game inside if they choose?