Let's Build a Stadium in New Orleans That Can Host the Super Bowl Every Year
Welcome to Bad Takes Week, where MMQB staffers have been asked to expand upon some of their worst football takes. These are columns on the ideas they believe in strongly, even if it makes the rest of the room groan during our pitch meetings. Keep an eye out for more of these throughout the week.
Let’s start here: I’m fundamentally against billionaires getting handouts. I think if NFL owners want stadiums or new practice facilities, they should make, and be responsible for, the investment themselves.
That said, now let’s give those guys a pile of money!
I don’t think the Benson family will be building a new stadium in New Orleans any time soon, and it’s not difficult to see that the state of Louisiana isn’t going to be in position to help fund one (nor should it be, as I said) for the foreseeable future. I also don’t think the Superdome is in such disrepair that it needs to be replaced to house the city’s NFC team. It’s still more than capable of that. And the Super Bowl has already been awarded to New Orleans in 2024.
But I want the Super Bowl in New Orleans every year. America wants the Super Bowl in New Orleans every year. We deserve the Super Bowl in New Orleans every year.
And to make this happen, concessions must be made. So I’m calling on the federal government—that’s right, the federal government—to make this happen. Build New Orleans a palace. The kind of palace that won’t be outdated in 10 years. The kind of palace that’ll keep the Saints there for good.
The kind of palace that’ll ensure that the Super Bowl is always in NOLA. And that the Final Four and College Football Playoff are always there, too. Hell, throw in the combine, the draft and the Oscars.
You may think I’m crazy. When you really think about it, though, you’ll figure out that I am crazy—like a fox.
This would be the federal government protecting and promoting tourism, and helping fuel the economy, in one of our crown-jewel cities. There will be more jobs. There will be more commerce. There will be more action in a cultural hub, and our biggest events will be elevated as a result.
And on the flip side, it would kick a leg out from underneath a key argument for publicly funding stadiums elsewhere. This puts it on teams to put together sensible projects that can be profitable long-term, and not just for the first few years of a stadium’s existence, or on the back of a single Super Bowl.
Is the Superdome good enough to host a Super Bowl? Sure it is. But only because it’s in…that’s right, New Orleans. There have been nine Super Bowls this decade, and eight of them were played in buildings that have opened since 2002. The outlier had its ribbon-cutting in 1975—which is about the best way for me to prove my point here, given how much was overlooked to grant the city that game six years ago.
That year, by the way, the lights went out inside the building. It was a mess, and unbecoming of the biggest sporting event in our country. Do you really want to go through that again, repeatedly, when the Super Bowl returns? Or, as the alternative, would you not want to go back to New Orleans for the game?
So let’s come together as a country. Let’s give New Orleans a stadium to match all the revelry that stadium has given us over and over and over again. And if you think I’m writing this because I want a free trip to New Orleans every February, well, wouldn’t you too?
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