SG's BITCHIN' ABOUT JAX

[SLOPPYJOE24]

2 WORDS:

GEORGIA-FLORIDA.

THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE AT THE WORLD'S LARGEST COCKTAIL PARTY ANNUALLY THAN THERE WILL BE AT THIS CRAPPY SUPER BOWL. I THINK JAX CAN HANDLE IT.

[Scoring Machine]

To play devil's advocate (no not the pinball machine) a higher percentage of people that go to the Georgia vs. Florida game live in that part of the country. You don't have thousands of people from Baaaaaston or angry white dudes from Philly coming down and trying to find a hotel room.

Plus there's like a ton more media people at the Super Bowl than at Georgia vs. Florida, and corporate sponsors and the like.

[Frank the Tank]

When I was in college we once snuck 15 people into one hotel room in Maine to avoid paying more than $4 per person for lodging. Those were good times, and I enjoyed the crazy college road trips. However if you've been working long enough to afford to pay your own way to the super bowl you probably have some minimum expectations about not only hotel availability but hotel quality as well. I think the hotel issue is the most legitimate gripe that's been raised about Jacksonville. You could argue that a good supply of kegs is far more important than a good supply of hotel space for a college game.

I still think the media should cut them a break though. If you're getting paid to see the game then you shouldn't complain even if you have to hitchhike back and forth to a hotel room in Tallahassee each day.

[Tecmo Bo]

Why cut them a break? If the city is doing a poor job as a host or isn't up to the task, then the media should say so. Jacksonville wanted the Superbowl to get the city some press and attract people. Well guess what, if you want to do something like that, you need to make sure you can HANDLE the people. Jacksonville obviously cannot. 15,000 hotel rooms in the city? That HAS to be a joke right?

[Frank the Tank]

By "cut them a break" I mean "don't exaggerate the problem to make it sound like the city is a hole". Write something accurate, like if you had trouble finding a cab, say so. Or if you couldn't book a hotel room, say so. I've read a lot about the lack of hotel rooms and small number of cabs, but it sounds like general complaining because reporters aren't getting the lavish parties every half block like they've been accustomed to. When you say "Jacksonville obviously cannot (handle the people)", I don't think that's been shown. If people are staying further away from the stadium than they're used to because of lack of close hotel space, that does not qualify as "cannot handle the people". By not having three nightclubs on every corner, that does not qualify as "cannot handle the people". Let's keep the purported problems in perspective.

[Tecmo Bo]

Here's some perspective for you.
You've got an 800+ square mile 'city' that can't handle more than 15,000 visitors, but decided to try and play host to more than 70,000.
Getting a cab has been extremely difficult and most of the fans haven't even arrived yet.
The organizers are so in over their heads that they couldn't even handle the logistics of seting up a party at a golfcourse for JUST the press members.
That's not exaggeration, it's not hyperbole, it's a frickin mess.

[Frank the Tank]

The cab thing is the most legitimate gripe. They did bring in 300 more and will likely have even more by game time. It remains to be seen whether the gouging stories are true or not. It's not like the entire city is uniformly spread out over the 800+ square miles. It's got a downtown concentration just like anywhere else.

They can handle much more than 15K visitors thanks to the fact that numerous people will be sharing hotel rooms and they did add space through the cruise ships.

Having some problems at a golf course party is not an indictment of the host city.

I'm not denying that there have been issues. I'm not denying that a bigger population/more concentrated city would have had less transportation problems. However painting the event as a failure because of issues so far is just incorrect. They act like there's never been any problems at any other Super Bowl ever.

[Tecmo Bo]

I'm not allign it a failure. You would have to cancel the game for it to be a failure.
I'm calling it a mistake for the NFL to choose a fourth rate city to host a Superbowl.
I'm calling it incompetence by Jacksonville to not have prepared better for the event (the $100/hr cab ride appears to be true).
Jacksonville is almost the size of RI and people have had to go out of state to get hotel rooms. Even if you get 2 people per hotel room (which is absolutely nto going to happen) that still leaves 40,000 people without rooms. The Cruise ships have not been enough either (I think I read they got only an addition 8-10,000 rooms from them but I'll double-check that [***edit: i just double checked that, Boy was I WAYYY off. The cruise ships will provide an additional 3,000 rooms. 3,000. Have I mentioned disastrous?***]). and even going beyond the 70,000 fans attending the game, you've got press, support staff for the press, support staff for the parties and events, posses and thousands of fans who are going to show up in the HOPE of getting a ticket.

[Adam Carolla]

I don't know how many other people on this board have had to do much business travelling, but any who have can tell you how much it sucks after about 3 trips. When a significant portion of your life becomes consumed by unfamiliar roads, resteraunts, and hotels - the little things stop being little at all.

Bill not withstanding, alot of these sportswriters live their lives from rental car to rental car, and hotel room to hotel room. The whole "What are they complaining about, they're at the Super Bowl?" take seems to imply they're on some sort of vacation (like Bill kinda is). The Super Bowl should be one one of the few weeks when their travel is fun again, and they know they can count on a good week. Instead, they're getting tortured the entire week by the stuff that MOST gets them down - wait times, price gouging, and stressed-out hotel staffs.

[TheWolf]

Personally, I want to hear the writers complain about it. I can understand the "stop complaining, you're going to the Super Bowl" mentality. But it's not like they're on vacation and chose where to go. They're down there to work, but at the same time, they're expecting it to go smoothly. If there aren't enough cabs and hotel rooms, I want to know about it. If there's no public transportation, I want to know about it. I don't get to go to the Super Bowl, so it's up to the writers to tell me all about the experience. The overwhelming opinion seems to be that Jacksonville wasn't prepared for the Super Bowl, and probably never should have hosted to begin with. I don't think that makes it a bad city; it makes it a bad Super Bowl city. And just because it can't handle the Super Bowl atmosphere doesn't condemn the city. It just means they should learn from their mistake and not have the Super Bowl in a city like Jacksonville again. And the more complaints people hear from the writers, the better the chanes of that happening.

[Tecmo Bo]

Today's high in Detroit, host city of Superbowl XXXX is 31.
How does Detroit get a frickin Superbowl? And one as significant as the 40th anniversary of the Suprebowl?

[nerf66]

I would love to see a "SUPERBRAWL" next year.

[Frank the Tank]

They're already playing off the roman numeral puns for "Super Bowl XL" in Detroit. "The Biggest Super Bowl ever!" <insert vomiting noise here> Don't forget Minnesota hosted an SB not all that long ago.

[nerf66]

I always thought that it was rotated to a cold weather stadium every few years. Am I wrong?

[Frank the Tank]

Any city with a domed stadium is eligible for consideration, but there's no official rotation. SG hit the nail on the head though that teams with new stadiums (so long as they're in southern cities or domed) are quite likely to be rewarded with a Super Bowl. If Gillette Stadium had a retractable roof there's no question in my mind they'd be awarded a Super Bowl, logistics be damned.