Hosting the Super Bowl may very well be a privilage most American cities don’t have. It’s the single biggest sporting event around the globe in a given year, and the National Football League fully knows that. This is why some of the demands the NFL has to host cities shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. It is, however, some of these off-the-grid demands that no one knows about that seem a tad ridiculous.
Take Minneapolis as an example. Flush with what promises to be a state-of-the-art new stadium, it was chosen to host the Super Bowl in 2018. This was met with applause for a ton of supporters of the idea to go from what had been considered traditional host cities. Unfortunately for officials in Minneapolis, some of the demands the NFL has sent its way are somewhat alarming.
According to the Star Tribune, here are some of the demands from the NFL.
Under a six-page “Government Guarantees” section, the NFL also asked that local police provide officers, at no cost, for anti-counterfeit enforcement teams focused on tickets and merchandise.
Also, the document states that the hotels where the teams stay should be obligated to televise the NFL Network for a year before the Super Bowl — at no cost to the league.
That’s a good one right there. Promote and pimp the largest league in the United States at no cost to the league at all. Will the hotels foot the bill for this one? Maybe we will start to see a “Super Bowl tax” on our receipts upon checking into hotels in the Twin Cities.
Oh, but there is more.
The NFL asked that if cellphone signal strength at the team hotels is not strong enough, then the host committee — at no cost to the league — “will be responsible [for erecting] a sufficient number of portable cellular towers.”
Why not? The players need the highest quality service to make sure they get Vine’s and Tweets up in time.
Inside the stadium for the Super Bowl, the league asked that it be able to install ATMs that accept NFL preferred credit and debit cards — and for officials to cover or remove ATMs that “conflict with NFL preferred payment services.”
Sorry Diners Club, you’re out of luck here.
The league also asked for benefits in the local media “to provide significant advertising and promotional time” for the “NFL Experience” in the month leading up to the game. Among them: At least 20 color pages of free space, in aggregate, in leading daily newspapers to promote the game and four weeks of free promotions on at least six local radio stations, including at least 250 live or prerecorded ads.
That’s nothing. Just wait until one of the major political parties hold a convention in Minneapolis. After all, isn’t this what it kind of sounds like? If Minnesota doesn’t already have Roger Goodell fatigue in the months leading up to the Super Bowl, he made it pretty sure that the city will once the game itself kicks off.
Getting the Super Bowl might have been a major coup for Minneapolis. Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn out like the Olympics for the city. By this I mean, that it ends up losing money. After all, the NFL seems to be doing everything in its power to impact Minneapolis’ bottom line.
The larger issue here is just how secretive all this was. Some political power players in Minneapolis feel that the wool has been pulled over their eyes. And for good reason. At the very least, we know that the private sector should foot most of the bill here. That’s the one saving grace of doing business with a shady league office in New York City.
Photo: Wesh.com