MDS posted something earlier this morning regarding the fledgling efforts to bring a Super Bowl to Pittsburgh, spearheaded by the area’s official tourism agency.
Though the attempt to get a Super Bowl in the Steel City surely will never succeed, the effort already is a success, as far as the area’s official tourism agency is concerned.
“Visit Pittsburgh” thrives on publicity for Pittsburgh, and getting Pittsburgh into the conversation for a possible Pittsburgh Super Bowl means that there will be more mentions of Pittsburgh in national publications and broadcasts that otherwise would not be mentioning Pittsburgh at that specific time. Pittsburgh.
And I love Pittsburgh. But Pittsburgh isn’t suited to host a Super Bowl because it lacks, among other things, the hotel space needed to accommodate the media and the out-of-towners who would descend on the region for the game. Though other Super Bowl locations spread things out over a broader region, with Tampa’s Super Bowl having a strong presence in Orlando and Miami’s most recent Super Bowl seeing most of the hotel and media events located in Ft. Lauderdale, there’s no other city within an hour or so of Pittsburgh that could serve as the satellite location for any guests and events that Pittsburgh simply wouldn’t be able to shoehorn into the Golden Triangle.
In Jacksonville, the problem of space was solved by cruise ships serving as temporary hotel space. Though we’d relish the sight of a Royal Caribbean Oasis Class barge o’humans floating up the Ohio River to the sounds of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s not an option for Pittsburgh.
But, hey, kudos to Joe McGrath for doing what he can to get Pittsburgh’s name into the national consciousness. Maybe in his next interview he’ll make the case for Pittsburgh hosting the Summer Olympics. In Pittsburgh.