Dear Commissioner Goodell,
You have a good thing going with this Super Bowl racket of yours. Last year’s game averaged 123.7 million viewers across television and streaming platforms and Super Bowls have accounted for nine of the Top 10 most watched broadcasts in U.S. history. It’s also proven to be rather profitable. Your heavily hyped title game generates up to $1.8 billion per year in ticket sales, commercials spots, and merchandise. That’s more than the GDP of some island nations.
I wouldn’t blame you for feeling a bit smug, but now is not the time to rest on your laurels. As impressive as the Super Bowl may be, it can be even better with a little innovation. I reached out to some of my good friends and solicited their bold opinions on how to improve football’s biggest spectacle.
See you in New Orleans!
1. Switch things up
Let me live on the day after - Can we please move this game to a Saturday? It's late and runs long. I don't want to work the next day. Just thinking about work late in the second half is a crime. We've spent two weeks to the lead up, we have time. Move the Super Bowl to a Saturday and let the following Sunday be the best ever reset day imaginable. Plus leftovers!!
-Josh Inglis, Betting Analyst
2. Feel the draft
Moving the Super Bowl to a Saturday is a clear and obvious fix that most of us can agree on, but the two-week break before the game really drags on and something needs to be done to give the weekend before a little bit of juice. The Pro Bowl, or whatever replaced it, isn’t the answer, so why not bump the Draft Combine up a few weeks to put even more spotlight on incoming players and build more hype for the draft?
The Combine itself is slowly becoming a TV event, so the NFL should go all-in, get more creative with how it’s produced for TV, and fill the void the weekend before the game. If they wanted to go really crazy, fans would go nuts if they also introduced a draft lottery system to determine the draft order.
-Joe Osborne, Senior Betting Analyst
3. Super Bowl Monday
The Monday after the Super Bowl needs to be an international holiday. There’s no need to debate, or discuss, it’s just a fact. Millions of people worldwide stay up late, dive into piles of wings and snacks while emotionally – and financially – investing in the big game. Employees are rewatching highlights, debating commercials, and nursing food comas – or worse – the following Monday. And, let’s be frank, we’d all be better off with a day to recover, recharge and reflect on the night before.
Super Bowl Sunday is a staple. It’s time to bring Super Bowl Monday to the table.
-Neil Parker, Betting Analyst
4. Go old school
The Super Bowl may be the grandest event in sports, but it’s become far too sanitized for my tastes. The NFL’s championship game is played annually in warm weather cities or in temperature-controlled domes where all climate-related variables are nullified.
I personally advocate for moving the Super Bowl to the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field every year. Just imagine running backs chugging through two feet of snow, kickers coping with 70 mph squalls, and referees dealing with whistles freezing to their lips. Now that is football as God – and Ray Nitschke – intended.
-Ryan Murphy, Managing Editor
5. Embrace technology
Put some microchip/tracking technology in the football. If tennis balls can be hit at 150 mph and measured within a 10th of an inch for accuracy on whether they touched a line or not — and the other football can track if a ball crossed a line or a player was offsides (by even just a nose) — there's no reason the NFL should still have 50-year-olds trying to eyeball things in the midst of 22 large men causing chaos all over the field.
-Jared Hochman, Content Manager
6. Home sweet home
Just like the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Finals, and the World Series, the team with the best record should host the Super Bowl instead of it being held at a neutral site. Season ticket holders, lifelong fans, and local businesses should be the ones benefiting from their team making it to and hosting a Super Bowl. It has turned into a corporate spectacle, and I feel like I’m watching the lower bowl of a Toronto Maple Leafs game when tuning into the Super Bowl—there’s no atmosphere at all in the stadium. Imagine if Super Bowl LIX were held at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
-Jon Metler, Betting Analyst
7. Get judgmental
Nothing is worse than seeing a game come down to controversial officiating and that problem is exacerbated in a match of this magnitude. It's time for the NFL to implement a sky judge, at least for the Super Bowl or playoffs. The sky judge would have more leeway on penalties than Replay Assist and would be an eighth member of the crew that can call down to the field for quick corrections in real time.
Yes, using a sky judge will result in more reviews and delays, but what better time than the Super Bowl when advertising is gold and fans are distracted by the bells and whistles surrounding the event.
-Rohit Ponnaiya, Betting Analyst
8. Give it the ol' college try
The NFL should once again allow college football stadiums into the mix when it comes to host sites for the Big Game. Some of college’s most iconic venues, like Texas Memorial Stadium, Kyle Field, and Tiger Stadium can hold over 100,000 fans. Not only would more fans be able to attend the Super Bowl, but ticket prices could also be lowered from sky-high rates of $4,500+ and the NFL wouldn’t be at a loss. Rice Stadium and Stanford Stadium have previously hosted the Super Bowl, and of course, the Rose Bowl has hosted five iterations of the Big Game.
-Robert Criscola, NFL Editor
9. Bring back the Bud Bowl
Either move the game to Saturday or make the Monday following the Big Game a holiday for all. Not only is it tough to get moving the morning after “coming down” from the Super Bowl hype, but my kids want to stay up and watch. I’m sick of hearing them wine about bedtime and forcing me to miss the entire third quarter herding them to sleep. Also, bring back the “Bud Bowl”. Bud Light has been waiting 27 years for revenge.
-Jason Logan, Senior Betting Analyst
10. Follow the NCAA's lead
If the NFL wants to continue to prosper, it needs to move the Super Bowl to a Monday night. There is a reason broad-appeal events like the college football championship and the March Madness final are always on Monday nights: it's for the ratings. There is also a reason nearly 40 million people attend college football games each year, filling 60 or 70 parking lots with tailgates every Saturday, while fewer than 20 million fans fill NFL stadiums and barely a dozen parking lots each weekend with painfully vanilla parties.
The NFL should do everything it can to continue its growth to become a sport with universal appeal, not one catering solely to the corporate types who can lounge around on a Sunday. Moving the Super Bowl to a Monday night would mirror the logic used by sports beloved by more of the cultured.
-Douglas Farmer, Betting Analyst
