THE STATE OF THE
SUPER BOWL PART I:
At Age XLIX, Super Bowl
Has No Sense of Place
NYTIMES
PHOENIX — Most of what makes the setting of this Super Bowl different from all the rest is a climbing wall meant to evoke the Grand Canyon. In a downtown parking lot, visible from the raised set of the N.F.L. Network and near a giant light-up cutout of letters reading XLIX, the wall, made of fake rock, has an enormous video screen in the middle that plays commercials.
The wall appears to make kids happy, but its higher, unintended purpose is as metaphor. It is artificial and audacious and demands attention just by existing.
That fits Super Bowl week.
To most of the country, the run-up to the game reliably and predictably fills a void from Tuesday’s media day to Sunday afternoon’s kickoff with hours of infomercial-like space filler on television.
More and more, you wonder why it matters where these games are played, because everything else during Super Bowl week is virtually unchanged by time or altered by place.
At Commissioner Roger Goodell’s annual state-of-the-N.F.L. news conference — another predictable staple, held in a convention-center ballroom each Friday before the Super Bowl — he was asked why Arizona was chosen to host the game.
“Arizona earned it,” Goodell said. “We’ve had a great experience here in Arizona in prior years. They put together a winning bid that the owners accepted. They deserve it.”
He added that the N.F.L. could not be happier with the “hospitality,” “plans” and “cooperation.” He did not mention the experience of fans or the uniqueness of the Southwest.
Super Bowl week merely follows the trend of uniformity in the N.F.L., where players and teams and stadiums have been slowly dulled of personality. It can be seen from the corporately branded street carnival that passes as festivity to the news conferences with coaches and players that are sold as whimsy.
Even the Super Bowl logo, once a colorful piece of art made fresh each season, has been turned to a steely corporate badge in recent years.
Even the Super Bowl logo, once a colorful piece of art made fresh each season, has been turned to a steely corporate badge in recent years.
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Changing the Super Bowl locations each year would seem to help. But at age XLIX — er, 49 — the proven formula means that putting the Super Bowl in Arizona is easier than putting Arizona into the Super Bowl.
That might explain why, near the media center presented by Microsoft, fans posed in front of a backdrop of Monument Valley. Two visitors, hours apart and without prompting, suggested that Phoenix reminded them of Charlotte. (Retort: Charlotte? But did you see the rock wall?)
Having the game in Arizona matters mostly to those in Arizona, where organizers praise the economic benefits, even as the mayor of Glendale, the site of the stadium, feels left out and said his
Residents of Phoenix and its suburbs, like those of other Super Bowl hosts, generally give a shrugging welcome to the attention and the atmosphere as long as it does not affect too many traffic routines. Thousands of people came downtown Friday to shuffle past booths and listen to music despite a persistent, spritzing rain that closed the rock wall for much of the day.
“It seems like it hasn’t picked up yet,” said Nathan Price, 24, eating lunch with his grandfather, Daniel Winger, who spends winters in Arizona.
The men were from Wisconsin and wore Packers jerseys. Winger said that most visitors would not understand all that the state has to offer, from golf to horseback riding to exploring the mountains beyond the desert.
“People who come to Arizona, they don’t really know Arizona,” Winger said.
Super Bowl week was not even the most interesting sports-related event in the area. At the Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, the 16th hole was its usually raucous fraternity party, and the mere presence of Tiger Woods ratcheted the energy.
At the Super Bowl, the big news was about balls used in a game two weeks ago. The most interesting things uttered by the 100-plus players and coaches came from a player, Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch, who did not want to speak at all.
Location does not matter to the teams. Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman will not be hiking Camelback Mountain, and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady probably will not be visiting the Heard Museum. Sunlight and free time are luxuries reserved for the off-season, which is why the images of Joe Namath sitting poolside before Super Bowl III, surrounded by reporters, spark such nostalgia.
Players are quarantined at luxury hotels sheltered from the contrived hubbub (the Patriots at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa, the Seahawks at the Arizona Grand Resort) and shuttled to practice fields protected by fences and security guards.
The only time the players are seen by the public is on television. The only time they are seen by reporters is at news conferences in hotel ballrooms. When New England Coach Bill Belichick was asked about the week, he said nothing of Arizona, but complimented the “conference accommodations.”
It could be Phoenix. It could be Schenectady.
Trying to connect a major event to the place it is held is not a challenge unique to the N.F.L. The Final Four and the Olympics are among those major productions that lean toward calculated formula and branded gentrification.
But those bidding for the Olympics try to shape their bids to the uniqueness of their cities. Super Bowls are party favors handed out to N.F.L. owners who get a new stadium built. If location really had to do with throwing the best party, it would be in New Orleans every year. Or it would be in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, London, Hong Kong or Dubai.
In the end, of course, the Super Bowl is a television event, and everything preceding it is merely meant to fill the void before the game. The people milling around downtown are not the primary audience. There will be only about 60,000 at Sunday’s game, but more than 100 million watching from home.
For decades, the games themselves rarely seemed to match the hype that preceded them. But for the past dozen years or so, the league has been blessed with an unusual array of crazy, competitive games highlighted by some of the Super Bowl’s greatest plays.
You might remember the catches of David Tyree, Santonio Holmes and Mario Manningham, the kicks by Adam Vinatieri, the goal-line stand of the Baltimore Ravens.
You probably do not remember where those games were held. But you can be sure that none of them had a rock wall like the one here in Charlotte
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