Miami’s Nice-Super Bowl Preview

It’s a very different Super Bowl week for a lot of reasons. The two teams, Indianapolis and Chicago are just 200 miles from each other in the Midwest. While the Bears have a national following, one player, Peyton Manning, defines the Colts.

Can he win the big one?

Can he take the Colts to the Super Bowl?

There’s no controversy, there are no “Bad Boys” on either team (figuratively of course. Tank Johnson would qualify in a literal sense).

It seems that there are 300,000 people headed to Miami and South Beach for the weekend just to be a part of the atmosphere. The last time the game was in Miami was 1999. Miami has become “hot” since then with TV shows and nightlife that glorifies the party scene. It’s the place where many NFL players head right after their games on Sunday to get in a party on Sunday night and through Monday before they have to get back to work on Wednesday. Some charter jets, others (from the Jaguars and the Bucs) jump on Southwest to Ft. Lauderdale to get there ASAP.

There also seems to be a pent up demand from corporate America to get something going at this Super Bowl. Right after September 11th, most corporations cut back on their entertainment spending, drying up a lot of the big dollars that they spent on clients to send them to big events like the Super Bowl. Add that to the fact that the game has been in Houston (ho-hum), Jacksonville (too little) and Detroit (too chilly) and all of the sudden folks are coming out of the woodwork to get to Miami and be part of the scene.

One columnist in Miami wrote it best when the headline on his Tuesday article said, “Today, the circus comes to town.” It really is a traveling circus, and the people who come to the Super Bowl are attracted to what Miami has to offer. Nightlife, strip clubs, cocktails and restaurants. The promise that you might see a celebrity or get invited to somebody’s party is a strong attraction for the Super bowl set.

Tickets?

Who needs tickets?

The game is an ancillary part of the week. The Maxim, Playboy, SI and ESPN parties are the big tickets people are trying to scam.

I think this is my 25th Super Bowl, and the whole thing has changed. In fact, it seems to change every year. Sometimes for the better, sometimes, not so much. This year the league has designated certain parts of South Florida as official “Super Bowl Zones.” But make no mistake about it. If it’s not happening in South Beach, it might as well not be happening at all.