It's very cool that someone finally has home-field advantage in the Super Bowl...and it's absolutely insane that the stadium will be mostly empty! I'd be so mad if I were a Tampa fan and I couldn't go see my team in the big game!
I'm not sure it is cool. It seems grossly unfair. Empty stands this year might be one thing, but I don't see how you can have a championship with one team having homefield advantage.
I mean, they earned the right to host and made it to the show. The opportunity has always been there and no other franchise has capitalized on it.
The tickets are done very differently for a SuperBowl. I don’t think there would be a way to pack the stands with home team fans. You could say travel and familiarity with the locker room/stadium would be an advantage. But I think it would be a pretty small one.
I suppose the problem is how you avoid this scenario - possible homefield advantage. A single, neutral stadium could be built to host superbowls but that would never work since you'd have to choose one place to build it and it would take away from different cities competing. How about hosting it at a college stadium - are any of them big enough? Or maybe another arena of some sort that could be converted?
I'm seeing tickets anywhere from $8k (cheapest) to over $400k for a skybox. That's completely insane that they're drawing that much these days. It does look like every section is available though. Interesting.
$8000 a cheap ticket? I'm not sure I can even imagine what it's like to have the sort of disposable income. 8 Grand on a football game ticket - let alone 400k!!!??? Speechless.
I went to Super Bowl 23 and face value on the tickets was $250-800. Even a few years ago, most seats were less than $1,000...but evidentially that changed in 2019 and the prices skyrocketed to $6k-20k face value (couldn't find the price on the skybox suites). It's hard to know exact face value this year since tickets weren't printed- they're all mobile tickets for the 1st time.
Only 22,000 people are attending. Tickets are even harder to get and more expensive this year than ever. And if the Superbowl is in your home stadium and you win your conference championship, what do you expect the NFL to do, change the venue two weeks out? It's not unfair by any stretch of the imagination. Be real.
Love the hyperbole. It is unfair in that one team has homefield advantage. As I said in a follow-up post, I understand that by using one of the NFL stadiums this is always a possibility, but that fact doesn't change that it's a built-in potential, unfair advantage for one team.
By definition it is not unfair. Every team whose city hosts a SuperBowl has the same opportunity for a home SB in that year. Miami has hosted multiple SBs and if we had managed to make the game in any one of those years, it wouldn't have been unfair either.
You're talking about something different - the fairness of the odds of landing in that situation. I'm talking about from the perspective of the game itself. Having the game on your home turf is an advantage. That, by definition, means that terms aren't equal, thus unfair. Both teams have competed evenly to reach the Superbowl, they should be given equal footing, or a 'level playing field' for that match. The principle is everywhere. It's not uncommon. Contests like this should take place on neutral ground.
Personally, I think it's incentive for hosting teams to do exactly what Tampa just did- bring in potential superstar vets like Brady and Suh to build for that opportunity. I know that I was extra-excited for the seasons when the Super Bowls would be in Miami...we used to host it a ton because of the weather. The league is trying to let all teams get a fair shake for bidding and it's a very big deal these days- they give you a list a mile long of requirements just to submit a bid. Hosting the Super Bowl costs hundreds of millions of dollars and some owners have zero interest in that kind of investment. But if you do a neutral, non-NFL site then owners are furious...so that won't happen.
I don’t see this as “unfair”. Every city bids for the Super Bowl and the results are announced years in advance. Most of us can’t stand Brady and think playing in Raymond James Stadium is going to give the Bucs an advantage. Ok, so what? Are the Bucs undefeated at home? I recall during the heyday of Marino, the 1994 Dolphins were making their run to play a home super bowl in Miami. Would it have been unfair if the Dolphins would have played in Super Bowl XXIX in Miami? Hey, it is what it is. The statistical odds of actually playing the Super Bowl in your own stadium are astronomical. Congrats to the Bucs for that winning mega millions ticket. Now KC, go in there and whip their butts
I'm sure Mahomes and the Chiefs are not the least bit intimidated by the prospect while the Bucks had to win 3 road games to get to this point. The fact that's it's taken 55 years to get to this situation is a clear indication that the Historic Event Participation factor greatly outweighs the need to build a new dedicated stadium. It's like a solar eclipse, you're likely to never see another one.
I couldn't agree more. KC just destroyed the Bills and I honestly think the Bills are a better team than the Bucs. We'll see though- go KC!
I don't think I ever believed at any point this season that the Bills were a better team than the Bucs. Honestly, I've thought they were overrated all year long.
Is the Super Bowl any different than the playoffs in this regard? Giving teams potential home field advantage in the playoffs based on their play in the regular season increases the chance they'll keep playing to win at the end of the season, assuming they're in playoff contention. That's a good thing, and there's no reason why the same principle shouldn't apply to the SB. Granted, that wasn't the case with TB this year, but I don't see an issue per se with home field advantage in the championship game if teams have to earn it. That principle is also not uncommon in many sports leagues worldwide. In any case, home field advantage this year was non-existent statistically during the regular season (127-128-1) AND also non-existent during the playoffs so far (6-6), so this might be much ado about nothing. In fact, it's probably best this happened during a COVID season.
In a sick kind of way, my mind wants to root for Tampa as well...for that exact reason. Anything that insults the Pats makes me happy. And I have been rooting for Tampa up until this point so they'd have home-field advantage...just a cool thing that never happens. But to root for Brady, I don't know, it just feels creepy to me. I've spent most of my adult life hating him and I'm not sure I can ever turn the corner on that. I'll be perfectly happy if KC dominates as well, so I don't know how I truly feel on this one. Just hoping for a good game really.
Brady getting there is already a strong backhand to Belichik. I want the strong backhand to Brady that he can’t win it without Belichik.
Earning homefield advantage by a team's play and earning a good record is one thing. "Earning" homefield advantage by making a bid for hosting an event has nothing to do with football. The great thing about sports is the level playing field and the meritocracy. In an ideal world it's pure competition and the best will win. Going into a championship but granting one side an advantage, for no good reason, goes against the idea of pure competition and an even playing field. The league should avoid it. But I understand why they won't. It's a failing of the league IMO.
Fun fact of the day: with his victory over Green Bay, Tom Brady has tied Drew Brees and Aaron Rogers for number of NFC title games won. I think I'll root for the Chiefs, but Brady winning is such a big stick in Belichicks butt that I can't be mad. I guess I decided I hate BB and the Pat's organization more than Brady as an individual. Mahomes winning puts him on easy HOf trajectory though.
I don't think there's much home field advantage since very few tickets go to the general public. If you're curious how the tickets are distributed here's an article from last year's game. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...f-tickets-heres-how-the-rest-are-distributed/
The question I have on this (as have no idea), have they designated who is the 'home' team and who is the 'away' team. If the Bucs are designated the 'away' team, does that mean that they then have to have the 'away' dressing room, thereby not having the locker room advantage?
They alternate which conference is considered home. This year it is the NFC. But even if it wasn’t I don’t think KC would force them to use the visitors locker room. Honestly, this could be huge motivation for KC to walk into TBs house, smack them in the face, and walk away with another Lombardi.
A lot of the posts here seem to focus on Brady smacking Belichick in the face with a Super Bowl win without him. While I get that, I can’t stand Tom Brady. For 20 years all I’ve heard is Brady Brady Brady. It seems so many have viagra induced erections for Brady. I’ve been sick of it for years already. Brady couldn’t carry Marino’s jockstrap. The league had to CHANGE THE RULES to artificially create another Marino. If Brady played during the Marino era, we’d all be saying “who”? So I want to see the Chiefs smack the dog crap out of the Yuckaneers
I used to think I hated Brady, but I really just resented him because he was with the Pats. I've always hated Belichik though, clear back to when he was the Browns coach because of the way he disrespected Bernie Kosar.
