The decision to give the Super Bowl to Minnesota in the first year that the team’s to-be-opened stadium was eligible to bid for the game has sent a clear message to all other NFL cities that may be considering giving public money to the construction of a new stadium: If you build it, the Super Bowl will come.
Quickly.
There’s another message that’s being sent to the potential Super Bowl cities that already have their stadiums: If you’ll be going up against a city with a new stadium built in part by taxpayer dollars, don’t bother.
And that could make things interesting next year, if/when (when) Atlanta makes a formal request for Super Bowl LIII to be played at the venue that resembles a giant change purse.
If enough other cities decide to pass on making a pitch for Super Bowls when new stadiums built in part by public money are in the mix, the bids in those years suddenly won’t be as good as they otherwise would be.
Which makes it even more important to make cities like Denver, Philly, Washington, etc. think they’ve got a snowball’s chance to get the game.
