No matter what you do, you can’t keep everyone happy. Just ask the Tampa Bay officials and residents who lost their bid for Super Bowl 48 to New York — oops, I mean New Jersey. My mistake. Apparently referring to Super Bowl 48 as a “New York Super Bowl” pisses some people off, one of them being New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Christie has been furious about headlines that have featured phrases such as “New York wins Super Bowl bid” and “Grestest city gets greatest sports event.” Here’s what he had to say about the situation, courtesy of Pro Football Talk:
Those comments would come from the geographically challenged. I’m looking out that door, and it’s New Jersey, and I look where that stadium is, and it’s New Jersey, and when everybody gets on the train or in their cars or on buses, they’re going to be coming to that game in New Jersey.”
No need to get testy, Chris. We all know you have absolutely no problem reaping the financial benefits that go along with playing host to two teams that encompass the largest media market in all of professional sports. No need to start bickering now. If this were such a problem, he would have been lobbying to rename the Jets and Giants the New Jersey Jets and New Jersey Giants a while ago. The fact of the matter is the stadium is in New Jersey because it’s easier that way. Now that the greatest sporting event in America is coming to the northeast, New Jersey officials want a piece of the publicity pie. They’ve been eating the revenue pie for years now, and they’ve all of a sudden found a new appetite.
Christie isn’t the only one either. U.S Senator Frank Lautenberg has written a letter to Commissioner Roger Goodell asking him “to ensure that the NFL appropriately describes the site of the game as ‘New Jersey/New York’ and not simply ‘New York.”’ Yawn. I recommend these big wigs sit back, count their money, and realize that if it weren’t for using “New York” as a title to market large-scale events and NFL teams, they would have stopped counting a long time ago.
Source:
New Jersey officials not happy with talk of “New York Super Bowl” [Pro Football Talk]
