Venue News & Notes: Super Bowl Back to the Big Easy?
Story Highlights
New Orleans has hosted the Super Bowl nine times, and this week, the city could make its way back into the Super rotation. During spring meetings this week in Fort Lauderdale, FL, NFL owners will award the 2013 Super Bowl to one of three cities under consideration. Bringing the Super Bowl back to the Crescent City for the first time since 2002 not only would be a boon to the city but would display the NFL’s satisfaction with how New Orleans has recovered as a sports city from Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans could rejoin the Super Bowl rotation this week. NFL owners will award the 2013 Super Bowl to New Orleans, Glendale, AZ, or South Florida when their spring meetings take place in Fort Lauderdale. And while nothing as definitive as selecting a Super Bowl site is expected, the owners could also vote on a proposal to expand the regular season to 17 or 18 games, with a reduction in the preseason keeping the overall total, minus playoffs, at 20 matches. New Orleans has hosted the Super Bowl nine times, tying Miami for the most years as host of the big game. Miami will break that tie in February…
…An hour after learning that a state appeals court had dismissed a major challenge to his long-delayed Atlantic Yards development project, developer Bruce C. Ratner said he plans to break ground by October on an $800 million basketball arena in Brooklyn for the New Jersey Nets. The 20,000-seat arena is only one piece of a proposed 22-acre development at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues that would include an office tower and more than 6,000 apartments, including as many as 2,250 for low- and middle-income families…
…The International Olympic Committee has come and gone, but the challenges surrounding Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid still loom large. The Olympic Village, which would provide temporary housing for athletes before being swooped up by private developers after the Games, has been the subject of many concerns. Many Olympics opposition groups believe that the Village would displace Chicago residents living around the proposed site, the abandoned Michael Reese Hospital campus.
