Good news if you’re rooting for Houston to host Super Bowl LI.
Houston’s bid for Super Bowl LI received a major boost Friday when Florida lawmakers ended a 60-day legislative session without approving a plan that would have provided a $350 million upgrade for Sun Life Stadium in Miami.
Houston is bidding for the 2017 Super Bowl against South Florida or San Francisco — the city that doesn’t win the NFL owners’ vote for Super Bowl L.
The owners will vote on Super Bowls L and LI on May 21-23 at the league meetings in Boston.
Members of Houston’s bid committee were careful to not sound too confident after learning South Florida would not get the $350 million in taxpayer funding to improve the Dolphins’ stadium.
“This definitely improves our chance to get the Super Bowl,” said Ric Campo, chairman of the bid committee. “Miami’s stadium is woefully in need of repairs and upgrades to (Super Bowl) standards. Even after repairs, it wouldn’t come close to what we have at Reliant Stadium.
“If Miami isn’t willing to invest capital to make their facility world class, that puts them at a disadvantage. It improves our competitive advantage.”
Can’t imagine why they didn’t want to do that considering how well it went the last time, but hey, no one said this had to make sense. If there are three competitors for two slots and one competitor fails to meet the criteria required, that would seem to bode well for the other two. We may not even have to worry about the effect of the Astrodome on our bid. Sweet, right? We’ll know in a couple of weeks if it all worked out for us.