https://sports.yahoo.com/upcoming-california-super-bowls-confront-144629849.html
New Orleans’ Super Bowl has wrapped—the Philadelphia Eagles denied the Chiefs their third straight NFL title in a 40-22 win—and the NFL’s big game moves back out west, with the league’s next two championships hosted by the San Francisco Bay area and the Los Angeles area.
With California comes the area’s susceptibility to intense weather, including wildfires, flooding, mudslides and earthquakes. Uncontrolled wildfires devastated the Los Angeles area in the first week of January, forcing the NFL to relocate a playoff game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. Just last Friday, Feb. 7, a minor earthquake struck Santa Clara County, Calif., registering a modest 3.3 on the Richter scale.
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This raises the question: What would happen to the Super Bowl if disaster were to strike?
The NFL said in a statement it has backup plans to move every game, from the regular season to the Super Bowl, in an emergency. But according to Jim Steeg, a former NFL executive whose job it was to coordinate and make sure each Super Bowl ran smoothly, it’s not that easy to move a Super Bowl. If disaster were to strike, it’s more likely the date of the Super Bowl would be adjusted, rather than the location moved.
The Super Bowl’s date has been moved before: In 2002, the game in New Orleans had to be pushed back from Jan. 27, 2002 to Feb. 3, 2002, because the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. caused the regular season games to be postponed for a week. “And as far as logistics were concerned, even that was a herculean effort,” said Steeg, an NFL executive in charge of the big game until retiring in 2005.
In 1989, riots broke out in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami only days before the Super Bowl between the Niners and Bengals was to be played nearby in what was then called Pro Player Stadium. Despite 13 buildings being burned down, one person killed, 11 wounded, 400 arrested and $1 million worth of damage, the game went off as scheduled without a hitch.
Super Bowls are planned years in advance, with millions of dollars poured into the project from the host committee to sponsors and the NFL itself. The 2028 game has already been awarded to Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of the Falcons.
On average, Super Bowls cost the host city as much as $60 million to produce. In 2024, when the Super Bowl was held in Las Vegas, for example, $40 million was raised by the Convention and Visitor’s Authority and the other $20 million by the Super Bowl Host Committee.
Local authorities kick into high gear a year out, the day after the previous game ends. Hotel rooms are booked, some fans begin to reserve flights. The effort is gigantic.
Considering all this, that’s why it’s almost impossible to relocate a Super Bowl at the last minute. And that’s why the NFL moving the Rams-Vikings wild-card playoff game was so significant.
On Jan. 7, two fires began sweeping through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods, among other areas, ultimately burning down more than 16,000 structures and displacing about 200,000 people. As game day approached, the main blazes had hardly been contained, and it became clear the game couldn’t be hosted by the Rams. Unlike the Super Bowl, playoff games are scheduled with only a week’s notice as teams jockey for postseason spots on their home field and others are eliminated.
“The guiding principle for us has always been, don’t interfere and do anything that’s going to impact negatively on public safety,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told the Los Angeles Times at the time. “Make sure you’re not sapping resources from the responders.”
The Arizona Cardinals offered State Farm Stadium and lent the Rams two team planes to help transport 355 players, team personnel, family members, six dogs and two cats to Glendale, Ariz., with about 24 hours to spare.
The stadium and field were quickly painted in the Rams colors to give the team a home field flavor. The Rams overwhelmingly defeated the Vikings in front of a sold-out crowd before being eliminated the next weekend by the eventual Super Bowl champions in the snow.
There’s no telling what Mother Nature will have in store for the next two California Super Bowls.
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https://sports.yahoo.com/upcoming-california-super-bowls-confront-144629849.html
