NFL Super Bowl Report No. 6, Thursday Jan. 29, 2009
TAMPA — Tomorrow night in Tampa, the Lightning will play host to the Philadelphia Flyers in a game that is expected to draw about 14,000 ticket buyers to the St. Pete Times Forum. It won’t. There will probably be 10,000 (maybe) in the building.
Still, that’s a lot better than Tuesday night of this week when maybe 8,000 showed up to watch the Lightning come from behind and beat Montreal 5-3.
Of the 8,000 in the building, about 5,000 were wearing Canadiens jerseys. No wonder you can get an NHL ticket in this town for 10 bucks. There is nobody going to hockey down here. At least not at NHL rates they aren’t.
Super Bowl Week should have helped the NHL draw a big crowd here in Tampa. Instead, it’s done nothing to get people interested in a team that has won six-of-eight and is playing very intriguing hockey these days.
The NHL is in bigger trouble than we thought.
2) You know you’ve reached the point of “Dull Super Bowl Week” when the biggest story making the rounds is the one where Arizona wideout Larry Fitzgerald will happily restructure his contract to make it possible to keep teammate Anquan Boldin in Arizona for the long term.
The NFL controls the words and actions of these players so carefully, that if one of them said anything that could even remotely inspire the opposition, it would be news for a week. In fact, the biggest story here in Tampa this week has been how few people care about the Lightning.
At least Celine Dion, Rihanna, Fall Out Boy, the Eagles and Randy Moss have arrived in town. Finally, got some real celebrities in this place.
3) According to the NFL, despite the downturn in the economy, media from 28 countries will cover all the preparations and game – the most countries ever to be represented at a Super Bowl site.
Japan and Mexico have sent the most media organizations to Tampa Bay — 22 outlets apiece. Next comes Canada and the United Kingdom, which are sending 18 media outlets each to Super Bowl XLIII. Including Winnipeg’s own 92-CITI-FM.
There will be a total of 141 international media organizations in Tampa this year, compared to 116 for Super Bowl XLII in Arizona last year.
However, the number of media credentials issued for the Super Bowl is down for the first time, according to the NFL’s media department. In fact, the NFL said there were fewer requests.
Although there are more media outlets receiving credentials than ever before — 633 this year compared to 576 last year — the number of specific credentials requested dropped from 4,786 for last year’s game in Phoenix, Ariz., to 4,589 for Sunday’s game in Tampa.
It’s a brave new media world out there. In fact, as newspapers die a slow death, there are more internet sites at the game than ever before.