NFL spotlight shines on an already hot city
Posted: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:05 PM
The big silver blister erupting from the red dirt of the desert in Glendale, miles from downtown Phoenix, is called University of Phoenix Stadium, which begs the question, “Is this where the online university plays its virtual football games?”
It doesn’t, of course. The University of Phoenix doesn’t play football as far as I know, which is too bad, because I keep imagining the cheerleaders jumping around their rooms at home in front of web cams. Instead, this stadium -- the home of the Cardinals, who are rumored to be an NFL team -- is the only one in the land sponsored by a university instead of hosting one.
The online university, whose unsolicited emails, ads and pop-ups infest cyberspace, actually has a campus in Phoenix. We drove past it on the way to the Giants’ hotel, and it’s a sprawling complex of multi-story buildings, all looking gleaming and brand-new. It makes it appear that there’s substantial money in online degrees.
The brilliant glare of media day
We got our first look at the stadium during media day, the one day of the year when the non-sporting media pretends it cares about football. Mostly, though, the people who come here from god-knows-where care about themselves -- “Look at me! I’m talking to a jock! And I’m falling out of my dress!”
You’ve probably read about the woman from TV Azteca in Mexico who dressed up like a bride – well, it was actually like the sort of bride you’d find in the red-light district in Hamburg, Germany – and asked Tom Brady and then Eli Manning to marry her. She didn’t get a husband, but she did get substantial face time on every network on the dial, so it goes down as a brilliant stunt, I guess.
During lunch, another reporter started grousing about the stunt and all the entertainment media here, cluttering up the show. They’re not serious journalists, he complained, saying they don’t belong here.
Au contraire, media day is one of the most brilliant marketing ideas any sports league has ever come up with. By handing out credentials to anybody with a camcorder, the NFL makes sure its big game spills over and across the cable menu, insuring that no matter how little you care about sports, you’re going to know about the game -- and you just might watch it.
Phoenix doesn't change, it just grows
I lived in Phoenix for about six months nearly 30 years ago. I’ve been back since, but not within the past 10 years. So I expected to the town to look different given how much it’s grown.
But Phoenix is one of those places that looks exactly the same as you left it -- only more so. It’s because as things grow up, they just keep spreading out in an endless two-story wave of construction with every new building looking pretty much like every old one and endless stretches of concrete freeways tying it all together.
It’s a great location, climate-wise, and the scenery is pretty special, too -- at least when you can see it through the acid-brown smog that hangs over the valley like a ratty old blanket. I love the Mexican flavor and food, and thoroughly enjoy the town.
Just the same, you can’t help but look at it all and think that this is the desert. People don’t belong here, at least not in the numbers that now inhabit the Valley of the Sun. You’d think that people would catch on one day and try to get along with their habitat instead of trying to make it get along with them.
There’s no more water left to divvy up in the Colorado River and judgment day is coming. Everyone knows it, but they still plant grass in too many places instead of using desert landscaping. And when it does rain, as it did heavily on Sunday, the Salt River becomes a torrent, roads wash out, but no one does anything to capture any of the water; it just flows on through town and is lost.
SUVs for everyone!
The NFL is doing its part to foster the fantasy of unlimited natural resources. The herds of motor coaches used to ferry everybody around for hours waiting to load passengers, their engines running the whole time. In New York City, that’s illegal, and it’s helped clean up the air and saved vast amounts of fuel. Not here.
At the team hotels, GM, the official car of the Super Bowl, has provided vehicles for the players and coaches. No problem there, and the Cadillac STS’s the players are driving look pretty sharp. But does every coach and executive need an SUV to get around in? Is this really the image the league wants to project -- “We’re the NFL and we can waste as much gas as we want -- and you should too!”?
