Los Angeles will have to wait a little bit longer to host its next Super Bowl.
Due to inclement weather that has delayed the opening of the new stadium in Los Angeles, NFL owners voted unanimously Tuesday to award Tampa Bay the Super Bowl in 2021 and let Los Angeles host in 2022, according to ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez.
“So what we felt is the right thing, is don’t put any risk to the Super Bowl, which is an incredibly complex event,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told the media, per Gonzalez. “God forbid if there’s some other natural disaster, or some other thing that might affect the schedule — which (Rams owner Stan Kroenke) does not obviously anticipate and feels comfortable with the time frame. It would put an undue risk to the Super Bowl and to our fans. So from our standpoint, we thought this was the appropriate thing to do.”
The vote took place during the league’s annual one-day meeting of all 32 NFL owners in Chicago, and the compromise was based on an NFL rule that mandates a stadium must be operational for two full seasons before it can host a Super Bowl. The new stadium in Los Angeles now is slated to open in 2020.
Tampa Bay bid to be a Super Bowl site when the league gave out the bids for 2019-21, but it barely missed the cut as Atlanta, Miami and Los Angeles were awarded Super Bowls respectively.
Raymond James Stadium, the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has hosted two previous Super Bowls — in 2001 and 2009 — and is set to undergo renovations that were approved in 2016 that will upgrade the locker room, sound system and install HD video boards, among other improvements.
Thumbnail photo via Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports Images
