The Ice Bowl cometh: Super Bowl XLVIII will head to the New York Jets’ and Giants’ $1.7 billion New Meadowlands home in 2014, marking the first time the big game will be played outside in a cold weather locale.
New York and New Jersey will be ready on Feb. 2, 2014 for the media attention, the parties, the tourists and the money — $550 million in hotel, restaurant, shopping and other benefits, the teams estimate. Mayor Michael Bloomberg celebrated the NFL’s pick by renaming 48th Street in Times Square as “Super Bowl 48th Way.”
“If it snows, it snows,” Bloomberg said. “This isn’t beach volleyball. It’s football.”
Shane Knights, 25, a Texan in Times Square where the announcement was broadcast live from the NFL owners meeting, said he’d like more chilly championships, suggesting the Green Bay Packers’ historic Lambeau Field as the next location.
“Cold weather football is where the sport grew up,” Knights said.
Katy Irwin, 25, a dancing promoter for the Broadway musical “Chicago,” was thrilled with dreams of jobs: “Maybe this could be where I’ll debut in a famous commercial … or maybe promote Budweiser in the parking lot in a bikini if I can get beach-body ready by 2014.”
