Most are looking forward to the food, the family and the knee-slapping commercials. I’m just waiting for that final touchdown. As we all know, the Super Bowl has taken over the Valley. Planes full of Seahawks and Patriots fans flew in, undoubtedly looking for the famous Arizona sunshine, but they found rain. Maybe even Mother Nature wants them to go home — I know I do.
Venture to downtown Phoenix, and you’ll find the NFL Experience. Tempe gets the luxury of being right next to the airport. Glendale is the stadium, Westgate, and a whole new mess of events. Every major highway is flooded with traffic. As a student at the Downtown campus who lives exactly 1.8 miles away from the stadium, and works four minutes away from the airport, I spend all of my time where Super Bowl fans are residing.
There is no escaping the overflow of visitors we’re welcoming to the Valley, and the golf fans that flew in to see Tiger fail miserably at the Phoenix Open didn’t help the situation. Why were two major events scheduled on the same weekend in the same city? Am I the only one wondering this?
All that’s on TV, radio and basically any news source or social networking is Super Bowl XLIX. It’s America’s sport, it’s true. It’s basically a national holiday. It has taken over the Valley, and for the people that call this state home, it’s made our day-to-day lives, and especially our commutes, a little more complicated.
There is however, a bonus to this otherwise annoying parade of Superbowl and NFL worshippers: the money they bring in. Or at least that’s what people assume. In fact, as TIME reported, the income will be significantly lower than the $500 million that the Superbowl Host Committee claims this game will bring. In fact, economists project hosting an event of this magnitude actually only brings in $30-$130 million. With 40 percent of Glendale’s debt being paying off these sport complexes, the surge of football hungry vacationers won’t actually help that much.
Not to mention, it is said that the money Glendale is spending on the Super Bowl could be used to expend services to homeless individuals and giving each one permanent housing and services for a year. Let that sink in.
The NFL is already a huge money racket, with merchandise, television broadcasting, tickets to games, and so on. But, surprise surprise, they are thinking of expanding. There is talk of extending the 16-game regular season to an 18-game regular season. In addition to increasing the number of postseason teams from 12 to 14, as reported by The Arizona Republic. True, basically everything in life is based off money and how to earn more, but with the NFL expanding, it seems like that is its top priority, not the good old All-American sport we’ve come to worship.
The great state of Arizona is not reaping as huge of an economic benefit from these shenanigans as it seems. The traffic is horrendous, our city is invaded and every event packed with people. Sure, it’s nice to have the bragging rights, and to even attend the events ourselves. Super Bowl XLIX isn’t the worst thing to happen to the Valley, but I’ll say what many Arizonans are thinking: I’ll be glad when it’s over.
Good luck to the next few host cities, it looks like the NFL wants things to expand, which will undoubtedly bring in more fans — if that was even possible.
Reach the columnist at dpharias@asu.edu or follow @Dpharias on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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