5. Winter weather dictates where the Super Bowl is played
Throughout its existence, the majority of Super Bowl games have been played in southern climes. As of 2021, only six Super Bowls were played in northern cities, and five of those have been in stadiums equipped with roofs. Only one, played on February 2, 2014, occurred outdoors in a northern stadium. The game took place in MetLife Stadium, located in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey. Other than that, the NFL awarded the games to locations where the average temperature did not drop below 50° Fahrenheit unless a roofed stadium was available.
The NFL required Super Bowls be held in a market where an NFL team existed, though not necessarily in the stadium used by that team. In 2014 the league decided host venues must seat a minimum of 70,000 for regular-season games, further limiting the number of available sites. The league established other criteria for site selection, including the ability to satisfactorily host pre-game activities during the days preceding the game. These included the NFL Experience and Gameday Experience pregame entertainment sites. Cities have spent fortunes on their communities in order to host a Super Bowl. For example, New Orleans invested over $1 billion to host the game in 2013. In return, the economic impact of the game was estimated to be in the neighborhood of $500 million.
