Question Everything: Could the Super Bowl come to Boston?
BOSTON -- New Englanders know the lore of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. There is the legacy, the dynasty, and all of the winning. Over the last two decades, New England and the Super Bowl have become synonymous, yet somehow opposites when it comes to hosting the event.
Boston made a play for the Olympics and will host World Cup games in the coming years. The Super Bowl, however, remains elusive.
"Would we be willing to do that? The answer is probably, 'Yes," smiles Foxboro Town Manager William Keegan Jr. "We do have some infrastructure challenges that would be a concern to having it there."
"Definitely capable, definitely have the infrastructure. The weather is the challenge," believes Allison Melangton, a native New Englander who led Indianapolis's winning bid for the Super Bowl in 2012, and their losing bid in 2018, "They typically lean toward warm weather cities."
On the contrary, New York hosted Super Bowl XLVIII in the open air of Met Life Stadium. Chilly Minneapolis welcomed the Patriots for Super Bowl LII in 2018. The caveat is that unlike Gillette Stadium, the Vikings play in a dome.
"We had 11 inches of snow Super Bowl week. It was the coldest Super Bowl on record at 4 below on Super Bowl Sunday with a wind chill of 30 degrees below zero," said Maureen Bausch, CEO of the Super Bowl host committee in Minneapolis for 2018. "When you do a cold weather Super Bowl, you have to have more inside spaces for people. We had to have a lot more protected areas which does raise the cost of a Super Bowl."
None the less, Minneapolis owned the cold and made it their brand for the big game. They held 48 outdoor concerts, built a ski hill downtown, and suspended a zipline across the frozen Mississippi River.
"We opened it with Idina Menzel singing Frozen on top of an ice mountain on opening night," Bausch proudly laughs, "We generated $450 million in positive economic impact from Super Bowl."
The city also built a brand-new state-of-the-art stadium. Soon, other teams did the same, which pushed the NFL to temporarily stop Super Bowl bids all together.
"There were so many new NFL venues coming online in a short period of time, so NFL said let's work with those NFL teams and put them in line. There will be an end to that," Melangton said.
Having been part of two Super Bowl bids in Indy, Melangton knows all of the NFL's demands. She currently works for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which hosts the Indy 500, the largest single-day sporting event in the world.
"You would be shocked. It's a three-inch thick binder with tons and tons of requirements that you have to sign and provide before you get to do the bid," Melangton said.
She says a city must lock up contracts for 30,000 to 40,000 hotel rooms before a bid is even made. A location must have at least one hotel with a thousand rooms.
"You also need an indoor space with a million square feet for the NFL experience," continued Melangton.
Then there's parking, also known as Boston's Achilles heel. Melangton says the NFL takes over a majority of private and public garages.
"You have to work with the owners ahead of time saying you have to turn your parking garage over to us, and not everyone wants to do that," she said, "In a city like Boston, you would have to tie up a lot of the limousine companies, so the NFL has first crack at using all those transportation companies."
Getting to and from Boston to Foxboro can be a major issue. At roughly 28 miles apart, only San Francisco has a longer drive distance between their downtown and Levi's Stadium.
"Case is whether or not it makes sense to have it out here because it is still a small town in many ways, so there are challenges with that," Keegan said.
He went on to say that transportation hurdles played a role in the city backing out of an Olympic bid, however he adds that the region does have some benefits.
"As much as we talk about Boston, a lot of folks come from Providence to this area," he said. "A lot of the teams fly into Rhode Island. They don't fly into Boston, and the Patriots own plane is in Providence."
"You will use every airport you have, private and commercial airlines," says Bausch, "That's the first, 'Hello,' and the last 'Goodbye."
A Boston bid may just be a regional bid that encompasses numerous states and teams.
"We talk about that all the time about cross branding," explains Joseph Cooper, a sports marketing professor at UMass Boston. "When you think about the convention center, Fenway, TD Garden, there are a number of venues that you can have offsite from the Super Bowl. I think it could benefit from a northeastern New England branding with Boston the centerpiece."
"It is a big exercise on getting everyone in a community on one page for the greater good of hosting it," believes Melangton, "You have to get any partner with any kind of real estate and get them on board early. We worked with the Indiana Pacers and used their venue every day, same with the minor league hockey team."
For what it's worth we asked every person interviewed for this story if they thought Boston could be capable of hosting a Super Bowl. Each person said, "Yes."
