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NFL could move Super Bowl XLVIII to Saturday or Monday if weather is frightful
MetLife Stadium could be the site of the first snowy Super Bowl in history. (Peter Morgan/AP)
The NFL has been working on contingency plans for the first outdoor cold weather Super Bowl since it was announced that MetLife Stadium would be the site of Super Bowl XLVIII. On Wednesday, the league put on a presentation in which it tried to assuage the fears of those who anticipate a snowed-in version of America's most-watched sporting event.
"There's so many questions about the weather," Super Bowl host committee Al Kelly said, via ESPN's Jane McManus. "We want to make sure that the national audience certainly knows this region has tremendous assets and resources and knows how to get this done.
"It's nothing more than reassuring people that, despite the fact that the world's greatest is going to be here, we still know how to clear snow. We keep the markets open every day and the schools open most days, and we'll do a good job Super Bowl week as well."
MetLife CEO Brad Mayne said that his crews cleared 6.3 inches of the snow that fell last weekend in time for the 1 p.m. ET kickoff of a game between the Seattle Seahawks and New York Giants, and that the NFL will have the best possible equipment at its disposal.
Still, if the area is hit with a worst-case scenario storm at the worst possible time, the idea of moving the game to a different day has also been floated. NFL senior vice president of events Frank Supovitz said that the game could be moved to Saturday or Monday night, but that those alternate plans exist for every Super Bowl.
"I think watching NFL football in the snow is really romantic," Supovitz said. "It's great, it's exciting, and if you've ever done it, you know that. It's also a rite of passage for you as a fan to have done it at least once. And this is a Super Bowl, right? So I think it's going to be amazing. I think it would be better if it snowed a little bit during the game. I think it'll just make it more memorable."
SI.com contributing NFL writer and Seattle resident Doug Farrar started writing about football locally in 2002, and became Football Outsiders' West Coast NFL guy in 2006. He was fascinated by FO's idea to combine Bill James with Dr. Z, and wrote for the site for six years. He wrote a game-tape column called "Cover-2" for a number of years, and contributed to six editions of "Pro Football Prospectus" and the "Football Outsiders Almanac." In 2009, Doug was invited to join Yahoo Sports' NFL team, and covered Senior Bowls, scouting combines, Super Bowls, and all sorts of other things for Yahoo Sports and the Shutdown Corner blog through June, 2013. Doug received the proverbial offer he couldn't refuse from SI.com in 2013, and that was that. Doug has also written for the Seattle Times, the Washington Post, the New York Sun, FOX Sports, ESPN.com, and ESPN The Magazine. He also makes regular appearances on several local and national radio shows, and has hosted several podcasts over the years. He counts Dan Jenkins, Thomas Boswell, Frank Deford, Ralph Wiley, Peter King, and Bill Simmons as the writers who made him want to do this for a living. In his rare off-time, Doug can be found reading, hiking, working out, searching for new Hendrix, Who, and MC5 bootlegs, and wondering if the Mariners will ever be good again.