The National Football League apparently isn’t happy with the plans being made by the city of Glendale, Ariz. in preparation for the 2015 Super Bowl and they’re willing to move events to surrounding cities if they don’t change their approach.
According to Paul Giblin of the USA Today, the league has already moved the “NFL Experience” to Phoenix, which is located close to 20 miles away from University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. For Super Bowl XLII in 2008, the NFL Experience was located just outside the stadium. They also are considering a move of the Super Bowl Tailgate Party and NFL awards show as well as several of the parties that are commonplace at the site of the Super Bowl.
The threats over moving events centers around a group of issues NFL executives are concerned about: access to thousands of parking spaces surrounding the stadium, a refusal by Glendale hotels to guarantee room prices and “a general lack of leadership by Glendale officials” according to league spokesman Brian McCarthy.
“We have to take this into account as we plan things further,” he said.
Glendale officials have tried to smooth over relations with the league citing significant turnover in the City Council and staff members as being reasons for the disconnect.
Mayor Jerry Weiers said the city is fault for some of the issues but that the criticism isn’t improving the situation.
“The bottom line is this: The city of Glendale wants to participate as much as possible with the Super Bowl Host Committee. We remain committed to fulfilling all of our responsibilities that were spelled out in our Super Bowl bid. The city is not completely without blame,” Weiers said.
Julie Frisoni, the interim Assistant City Manager, said the game is still nearly 500 days away and they believe they are “well ahead of the curve of where we need to be.”
“The issues that they believe are issues, we do not believe they are issues. But if they believe they are, obviously we need to sit down and have conversations with them,” Frisoni said.
