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Glitter Of The Game Clashes With Crisis

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By CHRISTIAN M. WADE

cwade@tampatrib.com

Published: February 1, 2009

Updated: 02/01/2009 12:18 am

TAMPA - The National Football League's multibillion-dollar celebration of its own opulence has gained a pervasive hold on American life since it came into existence 43 years ago.

But this year the annual event will be played against a backdrop of national crisis.

Two wars are raging overseas, the nation's economy is suffering the worst decline since the Great Depression and millions of Americans are losing their jobs and homes.

So it should come as no surprise that some view with antipathy the weeklong buildup of private parties and NFL-driven media hype that proceeded today's championship game.

"I think it's terrible," said Mary Wilcox, a single mother raising two children on a $7-an-hour clerk job. "All those rich people carrying on while the rest of us are scraping by."

Jose Ramos, a 33-year-old construction worker from Tampa, agrees.

"I like football, but the Super Bowl is a wealthy man's game," he said. "You'd think that with everything going on with the economy and all that they would scale it down."

Besides the hoopla surrounding the event, there's the cost of getting into the game.

A ticket to the first Super Bowl, played between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1967, averaged about $12.

These days, a ticket for a typical seat has a face value of $800.

NFL and Tampa Bay area officials say they are mindful of the tough times people are facing and have sought to portray this year's Super Bowl gala as a "frugal" event.

"No one is immune from the economy, not the NFL, not the host committee for the Super Bowl," Reid Sigmon, executive director of the Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee, told The Associated Press last week.

A case in point: the Super Bowl Host Committee was forced to lower its local fundraising expectation for this year's event from $8 million to $7 million after sponsorships lagged.

Corporations that are sponsoring the game sent fewer bigwigs to the event. A couple of the big Super Bowl parties and other events were canceled and others were downsizing, and some media companies - especially hard-hit by the downturn and the changing habits of news consumers - are sending fewer scribes to cover the game.

The auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers predicted the economy would be a factor on game week, resulting in "fewer visitors and media, a shorter average length-of-stay per visitor, and less spending in the hospitality and related industries throughout the area."

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio said the Super Bowl means an influx of much-needed revenue for local businesses and vendors, despite the fact that local taxpayers will be subsidizing the event by devoting more than $1 million to the NFL for security and related events.

"I view this as our good fortune that we are hosting the Super Bowl during a recession," she said. "We've got a 100,000 people descending on our city and I think it's going to be a big boost to a lot of people who are at the lower end of the service scale."

Still, those assurances are little comfort to those who have lost their jobs or homes.

"It's a big waste of money," said Tom Wilson, 43, an unemployed welder from Temple Terrace. "Think of all the people who could be helped with the money they've spent."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Christian M. Wade can be reached at (813) 259-7679.

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