10 cities that should host a Super Bowl

The NFL brings its biggest event to a fairly narrow rotation of host cities, so here are 10 cities that should eventually host a Super Bowl.

Super Bowl LI between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons is coming on Sunday Feb. 5, from NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. The NFL’s biggest event will ramp up big next week, with any and all remotely relevant media descending on Houston, with no topic off-limits when players are available for questions.

The Super Bowl has a pretty tight rotation of host cities, with some focus on where the weather tends to be warmer in February. Getting a new stadium for your NFL team is also a sure-fire way to get a Super Bowl, as evidenced by cold-weather cities Detroit, Indianapolis and New York serving as the host recently and Minneapolis on the docket next year.

The Super Bowl site cycle of Arizona, Houston, New Orleans, somewhere in Florida or somewhere in California is becoming tedious, and predictable. As the NFL tries to reach new audiences and keep the audience it has, both in the United States and internationally, breaking that cycle should be on the radar.

Looking into the future, here are 10 cities that should host a Super Bowl.

10. Green Bay/Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Packers are a unique NFL franchise, with what passes for community ownership, and Green Bay is also the smallest NFL city. But a passionate base of NFL fans exists within driving distance, to say nothing of the possibility the local team makes it to the Super Bowl.

Logistically speaking, Milwaukee is a more viable Wisconsin city to host all the events that surround the Super Bowl. But the game itself could still take place at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, and that alone should put eastern Wisconsin on the NFL’s radar.

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9. Chicago, Illinois

Soldier Field is a open-air stadium, which carries concerns for field conditions and such in terms of housing a Super Bowl, and The Windy City generally lives up to its name in the middle of winter. But otherwise Chicago has the infrastructure as a major market to host everything that surrounds the game, which should make it stand out in the NFL’s eyes.

Concerns about crime in certain parts of Chicago are ongoing and in the news regularly, but those bad areas can probably be avoided for the of events the NFL stages around the Super Bowl. Chicago is also within reasonable driving distance of many major cities in the Upper Midwest, so barring particularly adverse weather fans traveling there during the week of the game should have little trouble getting to their destination.

The NFL embraced the possibility of a snow game for the Super Bowl in New York/New Jersey a few years ago, due of course to the new stadium being built for the Giants and Jets. Soldier Field is obviously not an exact facsimile as one of the older stadiums in the league, but as an outside the box Super Bowl destination Chicago can’t be dismissed by the NFL.

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8. Seattle, Washington

The noted “12th Man” fan support at CenturyLink Field would surely ramp up for a Super Bowl, especially if the Seahawks were to make it to the game. There’s arguable no louder an atmosphere in the NFL, including indoor venues, and a wide range of possible weather conditions would add intrigue to a contest between the two best teams in the league.

Seattle as a Super Bowl host town would be a long trip for many fans around the country, as well as a wide swath of teams that could be playing in the game. But the week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl would remove some of those possible travel concerns, and the NFL has to embrace some non-traditional options to keep things fresh.

If the NBA or NHL puts a team there (again, in the NBA’s case) at some point, Seattle would be enhanced as a proverbial “major league town” and market for pro sports. The NFL may already be keeping tabs on those developments outside of their direct interests, so Seattle could be hosting a Super Bowl before too long.

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7. Toronto

Toronto has hosted Buffalo Bills home games (regular season and preseason) in the past, amid talk of that franchise possibly relocating there. The talk of that move has mostly gone way, with the Pegula family taking ownership of the Bills, but Toronto still looks like a very strong market for NFL fans even if the CFL is more of a priority there.

Rogers Centre is home of the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts, and major league baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays, with American football capacity (54,000 seats) to accommodate Super Bowl ticket sales. So the venue exists to host the game north of the border, in a city close to an NFL market, which has to mean something to the league in the bigger picture.

Toronto has a team in three major American sports, with the NBA’s Raptors and NHL’s Maple Leafs as well as the Blue Jays. The ship has probably sailed for a NFL team to be there as its primary home, via relocation or eventual expansion, but Toronto definitely has the makings of a possible Super Bowl host city.

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6. Charlotte, North Carolina

The current temperature today in Charlotte, via Weather.com, is 65 degrees and the current extended forecast shows a high of 59 with a 50 percent chance of p.m. rain for Super Bowl Sunday Feb. 5. All things considered, based purely on a long-running precedent, warm January and February weather in a current NFL market fits the bill for a Super Bowl host city.

Charlotte is smaller compared to a lot of other NFL markets, but that hasn’t stopped past Super Bowls from being in Jacksonville, for example. Add in a more passionate fan base than seems to exist for the NFL in northern Florida, and suddenly Charlotte begins to stand out as an untapped Super Bowl host.

Jerry Richardson is one of the most senior principal team owners in the NFL, so he could lobby for the city that calls his Panthers home with some level of clout. The league should listen in that scenario, and Charlotte should not necessarily have to parlay public money for a new stadium to get a Super Bowl.

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5. San Antonio, Texas

When the Raiders were starting to look at a move out of Oakland, before looking toward Las Vegas and officially filing for relocation to there recently, owner Mark Davis was reported to be kicking the tires on San Antonio. The Alamodome is considered a viable facility for an NFL team, and football is obviously a major religion in Texas.

The University of Texas-San Antonio football team calls the Alamodome home, and the building has hosted multiple events across virtually every sport. The NBA’s San Antonio Spurs called it home for a time, and the Valero Alamo Bowl takes place at the Alamodome each year.

With this year’s Super Bowl being in Houston, and the Cowboys’ relatively new stadium in Arlington likely to be in the rotation for the game now, San Antonio may quickly fall by the wayside as a possible host city anytime soon. But even at the risk of major Texas overload, San Antonio has to be an option for the NFL’s marquee event at some point in the future.

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4. Melbourne, Australia

As shown clearly by the Australian Open in tennis that has been going on this month, the time difference in Melbourne of 16 hours from the East coast of the United States is significant. But it’s also summer time in Australia right now, so any logistical issues could be set aside by thee prospect of very good weather.

The NFL is actively trying to expand its audience internationally, but at this point Australia looks like an untapped market. A Super Bowl Sunday kickoff at the traditional late afternoon-early evening time in the U.S. would be late Monday morning there, so perhaps some change in the schedule would come on game day if the game was staged in Melbourne.

It’s unclear how much a Australian sports audience would even embrace American football, let alone a huge event like the Super Bowl. But the NFL can surely do some due diligence over there if they want to, and possibly lay some ground work for Melbourne as a possible Super Bowl host. If it’s deemed to have potential, the NFL should embrace going “down under” to try to cultivate an international market.

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3. London

The NFL’s International Series of regular season games has started to expand outside of London’s Wembley Stadium, and into other primarily soccer venues in the relative vicinity. That feels like a bit of a force-feed to local fans on the league’s part, but London seems to have some appetite for American football and that could easily grow in the future.

There are clear logistical issues with having an NFL franchise in London, or any other city overseas for that matter. But a one-off event like a game has obviously proven to be viable in a certain sense, and it’s easy to see a path from more regular season games right into a London Super Bowl eventually.

London has been the NFL’s international target market to this point, with a de facto home team in the Jacksonville Jaguars that now plays multiple regular season games there each season. Truly, for better or worse, it’s probably only a mater of time before we seen an International Series Super Bowl in London.

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2. Mexico City

The NFL returned to Mexico this season, after a long layoff, with a Monday night regular season game between the Houston Texans and the Oakland Raiders in Week 11. Attendance was very good, with over 76,000 rabid fans filling Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, so more preseason and regular season games south of the border seem likely to be coming down the road.

Mexico City is on Central time in the United States, so Super Bowl Sunday and the week leading up to it would be on a normal schedule locally as well as for American fans. The city’s ability to host everything Super Bowl-related from a facilities and public safety standpoint might be a concern, but the NFL can address those possible issues fairly easily. With a game being staged in Mexico this season, any concerning issues have probably been vetted to some degree already.

All things considered, particularly now that the NFL has taken a step to re-enter the country, Mexico seems like a suitable future location for a Super Bowl. Viva NFL!

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1. Las Vegas

Barring something completely unforeseen in a looming relocation vote by NFL owners, the Raiders will call Las Vegas home in a few years. The city’s ability to be a big pro sports market, beyond any gambling concerns, boxing matches and mixed martial arts events of course, will then be tested big time with the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights starting play next season.

The Raiders’ move will obviously come with a state-of-the-art new stadium for them to play home games in, which will theoretically put Las Vegas in line to host a Super Bowl. The transient nature of the city might also make it a place where football fans would plan a winter vacation around the Super Bowl, which could provide an extra boost to the local economy.

Las Vegas as a Super Bowl host is clearly predicated on the Raiders moving there, otherwise there would not be a stadium to have the game at. But that seems like a foregone conclusion at this point, and as long as the NFL sees the market potential start to bear fruit Las Vegas will have a Super Bowl in due time.