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May 22, 2009
Super Bowl heads back to Superdome
NFL owners voted earlier this week to play the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans. Stephen Perry, president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitor's Bureau, was enthusiastic, saying, "It's been a long road back, and we feel like this is sort of a final validation that the capacity of the New Orleans' tourism industry is 100 percent back, because we just landed the biggest event there is."
Clearly, the 34-year-old venue has come a long way since the dark days of 2005.
Of course, the cynical might argue that it's not such a feel-good story as you might think.
Re: New Orleans' Not-so-super Super Bowl, and answering Dave Zirin's last line "When the Super Bowl party leaves town, who will be left on the sidedlines?". If we follow Dave's rationale, should we contact the NFL right now and tell them, oops, we don't want the Super Bowl? Should we forget about the $85 million in improvements to the Superdome (by the way, accomplished with no new taxes), and should we get out of the business of attracting more Super Bowls and Final Fours and BCS Championship games? Don't those events attract numbers of corporate officials, helping our efforts, as Dave suggests, to build a stable industrial base? Didn't the very announcement of Super Bowl 13 tell the nation that New Orleans is back in business? Thanks, but we'll keep it. Proudly.
--Bill Curl, Coordinator of Media Relations
Louisiana Superdome
USA Today: "Benson will get money in other ways, however. The state has agreed to spend $85 million in improvements to the Superdome and to lease office space for local state agencies at a downtown property Benson has an agreement to buy."
Bill Curl: "Should we forget about the $85 million in improvements to the Superdome (by the way, accomplished with no new taxes)....."?
One wonders if Mr. Curl is being just a tad disingenuous here. He's very careful in writing "no new taxes" but says nothing about the source of the $85M, which clearly is going to come out of taxpayer funds. In other words, Curl and company found $85M already in state coffers and diverted it to the millionaires' playground. Perhaps Mr. Curl can shed some light on how many kids will go hungry or how many elderly people will miss out on medication so that the big boys will be happy.
One likes that annual extortion payment from Louisiana to the Saints, too. Imagine paying such a historically lousy franchise to stick around. Some might think it would be better to pay them to leave. But who would take them?
The politicians in New Orleans and Louisiana are living proof that Barnum was right. There is indeed a sucker born every minute.
Posted by JT Wright on May 22, 2009 06:11 PM
We could go on and on about this but, at some point, many of us would just have to acknowledge the reality of the situation and simply conclude, "They sure love football down in the Bayou!" and move on. What's the point, really? If a hurricane couldn't dissuade them from pouring more money into the stadium then I don't know what would, short of Armaggeddon (NO! I really don't want to go that route!).
Posted by Transic on May 22, 2009 08:27 PM
Not my favorite choice. New Orleans is already getting the NCAA Final Four in 2012. Let's see if they can do that first, before giving them the Piece de Resistance we call the Super Bowl.
New Orleans did OK with the NBA All Star Game in 2008 - but not terrific. And why is there no love for Edward Jones Dome in Saint Louis? Here, the Superdome gets a Super Bowl - and Saint Louis, despite having a dome - hasn't had the Super Bowl since the team moved there in 1995. So, we'll get all the way to 2013, 18 years later, and still no Super Bowl. Sorry, but New Orleans was a bad decision.
Transic,
We have already gone through Armaggeddon and have lived to rebuild, rejoice and, yes, get another Super Bowl. I am sorry there are Americans that think that is not something really good.