NFL Super Bowl Policy Committee Does Not Meet In Arizona

Bid for 2011 Super Bowl put on NFL's back burner
Scott Wong
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 28, 2007 12:00 AM

Two months from now, NFL team owners will decide whether Dallas, Indianapolis or Arizona makes the better host for the 2011 Super Bowl.

But at the annual owners meeting at the Arizona Biltmore resort this week, any talk of the distant championship game took a back seat to discussions about harsher penalties for player misconduct, the adoption of a new revenue-sharing plan and other more pressing league issues.

Making his way into a spacious ballroom on Monday, Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson, who sits on the league's Super Bowl Advisory Committee, said he hadn't even thought about the 2011 bidding process yet.

And Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, a Home Depot co-founder, appeared skeptical when told that Arizona had thrown its hat in the ring for 2011.

Mary Owen, Wilson's niece and the Bills' vice president of strategic planning, said at this moment it was too early to look past next year's Super Bowl XLII at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale.

"We're looking forward to the Super Bowl being here. It's a good-weather city," said Owen, who will be representing her uncle on the Super Bowl committee. Regarding the 2011 bid, she added: "It's more of wait and see."

The team putting together the Arizona 2011 bid said last week it had no plans to lobby owners during their meeting, which wraps up today.

But Arizona Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill, who was on hand Monday, said sometime in the near future he intended to speak with his counterparts throughout the league about Arizona's second Super Bowl bid in four years.

"I'm not planning on it immediately, but I'll be talking to some of them," Bidwill said.

The Arizona Super Bowl committee must submit its bid by next Monday. Owners will hear presentations in Nashville, Tenn. during their spring meeting, set for May 22 and 23 and could vote then to award the game.