I recently had an opportunity to talk to Sly James, the mayor of Kansas City, on my most recent #Fuzzcast, which you can listen to here. One of the things I was most interested in is how a Super Bowl ends up in Kansas City at the Chiefs stadium.
James’ answer was pretty direct.
“I think we’re going to have to figure out some way of doing something with a roof,” James said. “Twice now, we’ve tried the rolling roof approach, and both times, it’s not made it—the first time by strike and cost overruns, the second time because of the vote (in 2006). I think we’d have to do something with that ... I can tell you this—had we gotten that roof, I think we’d be in line for one right now.”
Of course, there are other requirements the city would likely have to meet.
“We have some other infrastructure needs that we need to fill,” he said. “We need to get our downtown convention hotel built and finished—that’s on the way, and we need to do more things with transportation.
“We still need to build out rail and do more transportation things. But that and a roof and weather are the only two things that I think hold us back. I’m waiting to see what they do with other cold-weather sites before I start getting optimistic.”
The only true example in recent memory of an open-air, cold-weather stadium getting a Super Bowl was Super Bowl XLVIII in New York three years ago. If you remember, because of the possible blizzard, contingency plans had to be made.
Here are the next five Super Bowl locations— all warm-weather cities, except for Minnesota, which now has a fixed-roof stadium.
Super Bowl LII
Sunday, February 4, 2018
U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN
Super Bowl LIII
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA
Super Bowl LIV
Sunday, February 2, 2020
Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL
Super Bowl LV
Sunday, February 7, 2021
Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL
Super Bowl LVI
Sunday, February 6, 2022
LA Stadium at Hollywood Park, Los Angeles, CA