Super Bowl 2020 to Return to Houston, Texas
The NFL has announced that the Super Bowl will return to Houston, Texas in 2020. If you have been reading this article throughout the month of December, you are probably already aware of why I feel this way.
While it may not seem like a big deal now, the Super Bowl is the only time that the president and GM’s from the NFL and General Managers of the NFL and/or teams meet. Those meetings often have nothing to do with football and focus on politics and issues concerning the owners.
Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report wrote a great piece about the meetings that have taken place and some of the things that were discussed. If you do not have time to read that article today, I will give you a synopsis of some of the biggest topics discussed. You have a group of businessmen from different teams sitting together and discussing ways that they can make themselves look good and remain in power.
First, the issue of getting the team out of their stronghold that is Baltimore and moving them to Los Angeles, where NBC Sports has a stadium ready for them was brought up. The fact that the Redskins are already in Los Angeles is the reason for the move, but getting the team out of Baltimore was an issue that was put on the table. I am sure that there are still a lot of people in DC that do not want the team to move because of the reaction from Ravens fans when the team moved.
Second, Dan Snyder was mentioned in the meeting as being able to leverage his relationship with Twitter by having it take a lot of pictures during the game. If you follow me on Twitter, I have many followers that followed me because they saw my tweets during the Super Bowl. Dan even told a story about how he had to pay for a helicopter that was needed for the game, but then he had it delivered to him and he used it to get pictures that were sent to him during the game.
Third, according to John Clayton of Sports Illustrated, members of the Super Bowl committee said that if the team were to move to L.A., they would need to choose an existing logo to represent them in Facebook and Snapchat. One member of the committee suggested that the logo should be the same as the one for the team. The member who came up with the idea said that he was surprised that the Rams chose the same logo for their team and he felt that the Rams went against what most people wanted because the move was more about them looking good rather than making money.
Fourth, according to Clayton, a member of the committee said that it was important for the team to get out there and do a photo shoot. The idea was to let fans show their support for the team and then use the pictures as advertising.
Fifth, Charles Calhoun of the Times of London also came up during the meeting. During the meeting, Charles, the new NFL CFO of the 49ers, was mentioned as being a key player in helping the team determine where they should be located. According to the Times, Charles Calhoun, was called the “Godfather” of the NFL and was considered to be the commissioner of the league because of his role with the NFL and with the teams.
