Archive for March 9th, 2010
Competitive Climates in the NFL
With today’s release of the official Super Bowl XLIV video and the beginning of the free agency period last Friday, the 2009 NFL season has come to a conclusion. The news reports now are focused on which players will be wearing new uniforms in the coming year and how teams will be adjusting to the uncapped salary year.
Before we move on completely, however, it is important to note one particular side-story that has been overlooked from Super Bowl XLIV: this year’s Super Bowl championship game was the first such match-up between two teams who play their home games in a dome or retractable-roof stadium.
However, in the NFL it isn’t as simple as teams that play indoors versus teams that play outdoors. After all, of the four major American sporting leagues, only the NFL hosts outdoor games regardless of temperature or weather conditions and only the NFL hosts outdoor games during the fall and winter months. The NFL has teams all over the country representing different climates, and temperatures change drastically from September to February.
Looking ahead to Super Bowl XLVIII (48), which will be played in 2014, the question of NFL climates has particular importance. At this time, there are three bids to serve as host city for the game: the new Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida, and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Florida. Obviously, one of these cities is not like the others: a championship game played at Meadowlands Stadium would be the first Super Bowl ever played outdoors in a city referred to as a “cold-weather city” for the NFL. This is a tricky situation because Meadowlands Stadium is currently considered a front-runner to host the game; Sun Life Stadium just hosted Super Bowl XLIV, Raymond James Stadium hosted last year’s Super Bowl XLIII, and Meadowlands Stadium will be the newest facility of the three, opening for play this fall. But many people involved in the NFL are not high on the idea of the Super Bowl being played in the harsh winter environment.
This research originally began as an evaluation of whether or not indoor teams in the NFL had an unfair advantage over their outdoors competitors, but through actually doing the research it became clear that climate—and obviously the quality of team personnel—plays a significant role in team success as well.
